The Play's The Thing: Othello
by Slytherin Dragon
Summary: The annual Hogwarts school play, and the theatrical treat this year is Shakespeare's Othello! MST-style humor, as well as fun slashy hints. Enjoy!
1. Prologue and Casting

Disclaimer: I don't own them, they belong to the great JK Rowling. I just  
take them out and make them do things, then put them right back where I found  
them. Please don't sue me, I'm a poor college student.  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Prologue  
  
Hermione bounced in her seat, looking around the Great Hall, which had been  
hastily made over into an auditorium for the casting announcements and  
rehearsal immediately following. "I do hope I've been picked," she said.  
"It's extra credit if you're taking Muggle Studies, you know."  
  
"Like you need it," Ron scoffed. "What'll that make, then? Three hundred  
fifty percent?"  
  
"Two hundred seven, Ron; you're not funny in the least." But she stopped  
bouncing and looked around. "Fewer people auditioned than I thought... I  
wonder if we'll be able to fill all the parts?"  
  
Harry shrugged. "Othello's not got a lot of characters in it, remember? I  
think we'll be fine."  
  
At that moment, Professor Dumbledore walked onto the simple stage. "Well,  
here we all are. I'm pleased to see such a nice turnout for the Hogwarts  
annual school play. As you all know, the play this year is Othello, by the  
great Muggle playwright William Shakespeare."  
  
From the direction of a know of Slytherins came a very familiar drawling  
voice. "Great Muggle *anything* is news to me." A brief wave of snickers  
followed this remark.  
  
Once they'd died down, Dumbledore continued speaking as though he hadn't been  
interrupted. "And to announce the casting, I will introduce your director  
this year-"  
  
"Last year it was Flitwick," Hermione hissed in an undertone, "and I heard he  
was really good."  
  
"As long as it's not Snape, I'm happy," Harry whispered back.  
  
"-Gilderoy Lockhart."  
  
There was total silence for a moment, then Ron burst out, "WHAT?!"  
  
Lockhart, who'd walked out onto the stage, grinned amiably. "Well, it's a  
sort of welcome, isn't it?" he asked. He looked the same as he had three  
years back, but at the same time quite different. His hair no longer  
glistened when the light struck it right, but rather was allowed to fall  
perfectly naturally around his face. Also, instead of the blindingly bright  
coloured robes they'd gotten used to, he was wearing Muggle jeans and a green  
sweatshirt. All in all, he looked like someone who'd lost his memory and was  
trying out various looks to see what fit right. "So the play this year is...  
what is it again?"  
  
"Oh God..." Ron moaned under his breath. "I thought we were rid of that git  
permanently."  
  
Hermione frowned. "I bet he's not got his memory back yet. Dumbledore's  
probably giving him a job here hoping it'll help him remember."  
  
"Othello," Dumbledore supplied in response to Lockhart's question.  
  
"Right. Well then. I have the scriptbooks here... somewhere... ah, here  
they are." Lockhart watched raptly as a wooden box with far, far too many  
legs lumbered onstage. "There we are." He rapped smartly on the box's lid.  
"Open up."  
  
Obediently, it did, managing at the same time to display a row of very sharp  
teeth as well as stacks of slim blue books. Lockhart picked one up. "So  
here's how we're going to do this. The scripts have already been highlighted  
and names written inside. I'll call off names and you can come up and get  
your scripts. Those of you who are not chosen to play a part or otherwise  
assist will leave. All right?"  
  
"He was doing fine until he asked whether it was all right," Hermione  
muttered. "Now people will go out of their way to make problems."  
  
"Ssh!" Harry hissed.  
  
"We'll start, of course, with the title role, which goes to..." Lockhart  
flipped open the scriptbook he held. "Dean Thomas."  
  
"Good choice," Hermione noted approvingly.  
  
"Will you stop?" Ron demanded in a strangled whisper.  
  
"Next, we have.. ah, Desdemona. Ginny Weasley."  
  
There was a shrill, joyful squeal from somewhere in the rear, and Ginny  
bounded onto the stage to claim her script. Hermione frowned, but didn't say  
anything.  
  
"And... our villain, Iago. Draco Malfoy."  
  
Ron barely managed to keep from bellowing another "WHAT?!", instead turning  
it into helpless choking.  
  
Hermione just nodded. "I was afraid of that."  
  
"They cast Malfoy!" Ron half-moaned.  
  
"He's perfect for the part, Ron," Hermione said reluctantly.  
  
"Shut up. That only makes it worse."  
  
"Next, Cassio. ...Harry Potter."  
  
Harry blinked and stood up to go get his scriptbook and stand with the  
others. Of them, only Ginny and Malfoy had immediately opened theirs and  
begun to read.  
  
Lockhart retrieved the next two scriptbooks out of the case. "Roderigo, Ron  
Weasley." Malfoy broke into stifled snickering, somehow without looking up  
from his script. "Emilia, Hermione Granger." The snickering, stifled or no,  
immediately stopped, replaced by a look of such horror that Harry was  
hard-pressed not to start laughing himself.  
  
"And just to speed things up..." Lockhart retrieved the last six  
scriptbooks, and the box snapped shut, barely missing his hand. "Bianca,  
Pansy Parkinson." Hermione threw shocked looks Harry's direction.  
"Brabantio, Seamus Finnegan. The remaining bit parts go to... Neville  
Longbottom, Colin Creevey, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle."  
  
There were a few scattered mutters as those not cast filed out of the Great  
Hall. "That's that then," Lockhart said cheerfully, turning to face the  
small crowd of students-turned-actors. "Shall we get started?"  
  
  
Further Disclaimer: Add that the Luggage was created by and belongs to Terry   
Pratchett. I just gave it to Gilderoy for a lark and will give it right back,   
I swear. "Othello" was written by William Shakespeare, and is in my opinion   
one of his best plays.  
  
Author's note: Now that the first rehearsal's started, I'll be writing in my  
version of play script for lines both onstage and off. Enjoy, and please review. I love reviews.  



	2. Act I

The Play's the Thing: Othello, Act I scene i  
  
  
LOCKHART: Right. Well, since we've got the rest of today... don't complain,  
it'll take longer that way... we're just going to do a quick run-through, get  
to know each other better and whatnot. Something funny, Mr. Weasley?  
  
RON: No, nothing.  
  
LOCKHART: Excellent. This isn't a comedy. Now... Act I scene i. The scene  
is a Venice street. [looks around] Well, you'll just have to imagine, won't  
you? I need, let's see... Roderigo, Iago, and Brabantio... Mr. Finnegan, you will enter in the middle of the scene.  
  
SEAMUS: Ummm... I'm s'posed to be up in a house, Professor- um, Mr.  
Lockhart.  
  
LOCKHART: [thinks a moment, then snaps his fingers. The Luggage gets up and  
wanders to the center of the stage] Stand on that, Mr. Finnegan. I'm sure  
we'll come up with something better closer to showtime.  
  
SEAMUS: Umm... sir? That thing has teeth.  
  
LOCKHART: Yes, I know. But it's really quite charming once you get to know  
it. [Pats the Luggage] Now, everyone not in this scene offstage now or  
else!  
  
HARRY: [under his breath] Or else what?  
  
HERMIONE: Sh!  
  
[All exit except RON and DRACO. SEAMUS, offstage, stares at the Luggage. It doesn't move]  
  
RON: [clearing throat nervously] Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly  
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse  
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this. [looks confused]  
  
DRACO: 'Sblood, but you will not hear me:  
If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.  
  
RON: Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.  
  
DRACO: Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,  
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,  
Off-capp'd to him: and, by the faith of man,  
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:  
But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,  
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance  
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war;  
And, in conclusion,  
Nonsuits my mediators; for, 'Certes,' says he,  
'I have already chose my officer.'  
And what was he?  
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,  
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,  
A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;  
That never set a squadron in the field,  
Nor the division of a battle knows  
More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,  
Wherein the toged consuls can propose  
As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,  
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election:  
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof  
At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds  
Christian and heathen, must be be-lee'd and calm'd  
By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,  
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,  
And I--God bless the mark!--his Moorship's ancient.  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage whisper] Hey, he's not bad, is he?  
  
HARRY: I don't think he knows what he's saying.  
  
HERMIONE: I wasn't talking about Ron...  
  
RON: I heard that!! I do SO know what I'm saying... Ummm... oh, here...  
By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman. There! I just said I'd  
rather kill him. So there.  
  
LOCKHART: Keep to the script, Mr. Weasley, thanks ever so. Extemporaneous  
lines and adlibbing are grounds for execution.  
  
NEVILLE: [sounding worried] Really?  
  
LOCKHART: No, not really. But will you know the difference if I'm lying?  
  
[HARRY and HERMIONE give each other confused looks]  
  
HARRY: He... seems a little different, doesn't he?  
  
[Hermione just nods]  
  
DRACO: Why, there's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service,  
Preferment goes by letter and affection,  
And not by old gradation, where each second  
Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself,  
Whether I in any just term am affined  
To love the Moor.  
  
RON: I would not follow him then. [muttering to himself] If I were passed  
over for prpmotion like that, I'd just quit. What's up with wanting to kill  
this guy for it?  
  
LOCKHART: No adlibbing, Mr. Weasley!  
  
DRACO: Yes, no adlibbing, Weasley.  
  
RON: Oh, sure. Kiss up to the director, Malfoy.  
  
DRACO: I'll leave that to others better experienced... Ahem.  
O, sir, content you;  
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:  
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters  
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark  
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,  
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,  
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,  
For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd:  
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are  
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,  
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,  
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,  
Do well thrive by them and when they have lined their coats  
Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;  
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,  
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,  
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:  
In following him, I follow but myself;  
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,  
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:  
For when my outward action doth demonstrate  
The native act and figure of my heart  
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after  
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve  
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.  
  
RON: What a full fortune does the thicklips owe  
If he can carry't thus!  
  
DRACO: [Getting into his role, throwing an arm around Ron's shoulders  
conspiratorially]  
Call up her father,  
Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,  
Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,  
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,  
Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,  
Yet throw such changes of vexation on't,  
As it may lose some colour.  
  
RON: [muttering and getting away] You have serious problems, you know that?  
Here is her father's house; I'll call aloud.  
  
DRACO: Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell  
As when, by night and negligence, the fire  
Is spied in populous cities.  
  
RON: What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!  
  
DRACO: Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves!  
Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!  
Thieves! thieves!  
  
[SEAMUS runs onstage, looking very nervous. He gets up close to the Luggage  
and is about to climb on top when it yawns, once again displaying all its  
teeth. He hangs back, shaking his head]  
  
LOCKHART: It's perfectly safe, Mr. Finnegan. Just climb on top and let's  
get on with it!  
  
SEAMUS: Have you seen that thing's teeth?  
  
LOCKHART: Yes, I have, and I'm telling you it's safe.  
  
SEAMUS: [muttering] Sure, like I believe *you*. [climbs up onto the  
Luggage, which shifts its weight slightly but it otherwise calm] I'm not  
staying here for long though!  
  
LOCKHART: [placatingly] No one's asking you to.  
  
SEAMUS: [glancing down every few seconds] What is the reason of this  
terrible summons?  
What is the matter there?  
  
RON: Signior, is all your family within?  
  
SEAMUS: [staring at Luggage] God, I hope not... I mean, um... [consulting  
script]  
  
DRACO: Are your doors lock'd?  
  
SEAMUS: [laughing nervously] Why... um... wherefore ask you this?  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Wherefore?  
  
HERMIONE: Hush. It means why.  
  
HARRY: Oh.  
  
DRACO: 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on your gown;  
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;  
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram  
Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;  
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,  
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:  
Arise, I say.  
  
SEAMUS: Sicko! Get lost! [at a look from Lockhart, gulps and glances down  
at the Luggage] Um.... that is... What, have you lost your wits?  
[muttering] Oh, sure, that's *much* better.  
  
[The Luggage yawns again, knocking Seamus off onto the ground. He gets up  
and dusts himself off, watching it the entire time]  
  
RON: Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?  
  
SEAMUS: Not I. What are you?  
  
DRACO: [under his breath] Oh, what a good question.  
  
RON: My name is Roderigo.  
  
SEAMUS: [backing away from the Luggage] The worser welcome:  
I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors:  
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say  
My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,  
Being full of supper and distempering draughts,  
Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come  
To start my quiet.  
  
RON: Harsh! [Draco kicks him] Hey!  
  
DRACO: No adlibbing, Weasley.  
  
RON: [scowling] Sir, sir, sir--  
  
NEVILLE: [offstage] How'd he get "harsh" out of that? Am I missing  
something?  
  
DRACO: [quietly] Only a mind, Longbottom.  
  
SEAMUS: [speaking quickly] But thou must needs be sure  
My spirit and my place have in them power  
To make this bitter to thee.  
  
RON: Patience, good sir.  
  
SEAMUS: What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;  
My house is not a grange.  
  
RON: Most grave Brabantio,  
In simple and pure soul I come to you.  
  
DRACO: [clearly enjoying himself] 'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that  
will not  
serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to  
do you service and you think we are ruffians, you'll  
have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse;  
you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have  
coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.  
  
SEAMUS: Huh? Oh. What profane wretch art thou?  
  
DRACO: I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter  
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.  
  
[RON checks his script, then goes red in the face]  
  
RON: [glaring at DEAN] They'd BETTER not be!  
  
SEAMUS: [trying not to laugh] Thou art a villain. [beat] Noooo, really?  
  
DRACO: You are--a senator.  
  
SEAMUS: [sarcastically] Oh, *there's* a snappy comeback.  
This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.  
  
LOCKHART: [offstage and exasperated] Mr. Finnegan, do please take this  
seriously!  
  
SEAMUS: Or else what? You'll give me detention?  
  
LOCKHART: No, I'm not a teacher. I can't. [The Luggage scuttles over to  
him. He pats it on the lid. Seamus goes white]  
  
RON: Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you,  
If't be your pleasure and most wise consent,  
As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,  
At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,  
Transported, with no worse nor better guard  
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,  
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor--  
If this be known to you and your allowance,  
We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;  
But if you know not this, my manners tell me  
We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe  
That, from the sense of all civility,  
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:  
Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,  
I say again, hath made a gross revolt;  
Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes  
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger  
Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself:  
If she be in her chamber or your house,  
Let loose on me the justice of the state  
For thus deluding you.  
  
SEAMUS: Strike on the tinder, ho!  
Give me a taper! call up all my people!  
This accident is not unlike my dream:  
Belief of it oppresses me already.  
Light, I say! light!  
  
[Dashes offstage on the opposite side as Lockhart, the Luggage, and the rest  
of the group]  
  
DRACO: [waves a sort of salute] Farewell; for I must leave you:  
It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,  
To be produced--as, if I stay, I shall--  
Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,  
However this may gall him with some cheque,  
Cannot with safety cast him, for he's embark'd  
With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,  
Which even now stand in act, that, for their souls,  
Another of his fathom they have none,  
To lead their business: in which regard,  
Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains.  
Yet, for necessity of present life,  
I must show out a flag and sign of love,  
Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,  
Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;  
And there will I be with him. So, farewell.  
  
[DRACO saunters offstage. SEAMUS has snuck around the back and reenters,  
followed by the bit players CRABBE, GOYLE, COLIN, and NEVILLE. COLIN is  
still carrying his camera, and NEVILLE is keeping as far from CRABBE and  
GOYLE as he can without leaving the group. All are carrying lit wands except  
CRABBE and GOYLE, who couldn't get theirs to light]  
  
SEAMUS: It is too true an evil: gone she is;  
And what's to come of my despised time  
Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,  
Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!  
With the Moor, say'st thou? Who would be a father!  
How didst thou know 'twas she? O she deceives me  
Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers:  
Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?  
  
RON: Truly, I think they are.  
  
SEAMUS: O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!  
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds  
By what you see them act. Is there not charms  
By which the property of youth and maidhood  
May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,  
Of some such thing?  
  
RON: I don't read those kinds of books, Seamus... have you asked... oh.  
Right.... Yes, sir, I have indeed.  
  
SEAMUS: Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!  
Some one way, some another. Do you know  
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?  
  
RON: I'd better, hadn't I? Else there wouldn't be much of a play, would  
there?  
  
LOCKHART: [offstage] I give up. Open season, everyone who's not on stage.  
Feel free to speak your mind, seein as everyone else is.  
  
HERMIONE: It's only the first run-through, Prof... sir. We'll get better.  
  
LOCKHART: Confident, aren't you, Miss Granger? [smiles]  
  
[Harry and Ron make gagging faces, Hermione blushes]  
  
HERMIONE: I try to be.  
  
RON: [loudly] I think I can discover him, if you please,  
To get good guard and go along with me.  
  
SEAMUS: Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call;  
I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!  
And raise some special officers of night.  
On, good Roderigo: I'll deserve your pains.  
  
[Everyone exits stage]  
  
End scene i  
  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act I scene ii  
  
  
[Enter DEAN, DRACO, and the bit players COLIN and NEVILLE to the 'Venice  
street' scene. The bit players are still carrying their 'torches'.]  
  
DRACO: [piously] Though in the trade of war I have slain men,  
Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience  
To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity  
Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times  
I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, almost admiring] Oh, he *is* good....  
  
HARRY: [offstage, muttering] Hypocrite.  
  
DEAN: 'Tis better as it is.  
  
DRACO: Nay, but he prated,  
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms  
Against your honour  
That, with the little godliness I have,  
I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,  
Are you fast married? Be assured of this,  
That the magnifico is much beloved,  
And hath in his effect a voice potential  
As double as the duke's: he will divorce you;  
Or put upon you what restraint and grievance  
The law, with all his might to enforce it on,  
Will give him cable.  
  
RON: Whose side is this guy Iago *on*, anyway?  
  
HERMIONE: His. Now shut up and let me watch, Ron.  
  
DEAN: Let him do his spite:  
My services which I have done the signiory  
Shall out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to know,--  
Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,  
I shall promulgate--I fetch my life and being  
From men of royal siege, and my demerits  
May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune  
As this that I have reach'd: for know, Iago,  
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,  
I would not my unhoused free condition  
Put into circumscription and confine  
For the sea's worth. But, look! what lights come yond?  
  
DRACO: Those are the raised father and his friends:  
You were best go in.  
  
DEAN: I must be found:  
My parts, my title and my perfect soul  
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?  
  
DRACO: By Janus, I think no.  
  
[Enter HARRY, flanked on either side by CRABBE and GOYLE, who have not yet  
gotten their 'torches' to light properly]  
  
RON: [Offstage, whispering] How did those two ever get past first year?  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, also whispering, doubtfully] Maybe they have hidden  
talents...  
  
DEAN: The servants of the duke, and my lieutenant.  
The goodness of the night upon you, friends!  
What is the news?  
  
HARRY: The duke does greet you, general,  
And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,  
Even on the instant.  
  
DEAN: What is the matter, think you?  
  
HARRY: Something from Cyprus as I may divine:  
It is a business of some heat: the galleys  
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers  
This very night at one another's heels,  
And many of the consuls, raised and met,  
Are at the duke's already: you have been  
hotly call'd for;  
When, being not at your lodging to be found,  
The senate hath sent about three several guests  
To search you out.  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage] Ah. Now we meet the subplot.  
  
LOCKHART: Miss Granger, not you too!  
  
DEAN: 'Tis well I am found by you.  
I will but spend a word here in the house,  
And go with you.  
  
[DEAN exits stage right. RON pulls him aside and starts talking to him too  
quietly to be heard. CRABBE and GOYLE mill around, confused. Eventually  
they sit down on the ground and CRABBE brings out a deck of cards. All four  
of the bit players start playing cards]  
  
HARRY: Ancient, what makes he here?  
  
DRACO: [smiling] 'Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack:  
If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever.  
  
HARRY: Huh? I mean... I do not understand.  
  
DRACO: He's married. [under his breath] Idiot.  
  
HARRY: To who?  
  
[Dean reenters, looking a little shell-shocked]  
  
DRACO: Marry, to- Come, captain, will you go?  
  
DEAN: Have... um... have with you.  
  
RON: [snickering] Sounds like an invitation, Malfoy....  
  
HARRY: Here comes another troop to seek for you.  
  
DRACO: [quickly and smirking] It is Brabantio. General, be advised;  
He comes to bad intent.  
  
[Enter SEAMUS and RON. The Luggage is following them in lieu of bit players  
with 'torches'. Seamus looks back at it every so often, making sure it's not  
snapping at him]  
  
DEAN: Holla! stand there!  
  
RON: Signior, it is the Moor.  
  
SEAMUS: No, really? [The Luggage yawns] I mean, Down with him, thief!  
  
[The bit players, far from drawing their weapons and looking threatening,  
continue with their card game]  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, encouragingly to LOCKHART] It could be worse...  
  
LOCKHART: How?  
  
HERMIONE: [thinks for a moment] They could be using NONE of the lines.  
  
DRACO: [falls into dueling position, grins and draws his wand] You,  
Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you.  
  
DEAN: [knocks up DRACO's wand] Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will  
rust them.  
Good signior, you shall more command with years  
Than with your weapons.  
  
DRACO: [muttering] Spoilsport.  
  
SEAMUS: O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?  
Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;  
For I'll refer me to all things of sense,  
If she in chains of magic were not bound,  
Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,  
So opposite to marriage that she shunned  
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,  
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,  
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom  
Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.  
Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense  
That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,  
Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals  
That weaken motion: I'll have't disputed on;  
'Tis probable and palpable to thinking.  
I therefore apprehend and do attach thee  
For an abuser of the world, a practiser  
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.  
Lay hold upon him: if he do resist,  
Subdue him at his peril.  
  
DEAN: Hold your hands,  
Both you of my inclining, and the rest:  
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it  
Without a prompter. Where will you that I go  
To answer this your charge?  
  
COLIN: [to CRABBE] You just *asked* me for threes! Are you stupid or just not paying attention?  
  
SEAMUS: To prison, till fit time  
Of law and course of direct session  
Call thee to answer.  
  
DEAN: What if I do obey?  
How may the duke be therewith satisfied,  
Whose messengers are here about my side,  
Upon some present business of the state  
To bring me to him?  
  
[DRACO kicks GOYLE in the back]  
  
GOYLE: Whaaat? Oh, yeah. Huh... 'Tis true, most worthy siggneeor;  
The duke's in cownsull and your noble self,  
I am sure, is sent fer.  
  
SEAMUS: How! the duke in council!  
In this time of the night! Bring him away:  
Mine's not an idle cause: the duke himself,  
Or any of my brothers of the state,  
Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own;  
For if such actions may have passage free,  
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.  
[pauses] Boy, I change my mind quickly, don't I?  
  
[All exit but the bit players]  
  
NEVILLE: Go fish.  
  
End scene ii  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act I, scene iii  
  
[The bit players, minus NEVILLE, are still sitting on the ground playing  
cards. COLIN is sitting on his script. LOCKHART stalks onstage closely  
followed by the Luggage and takes the cards away]  
  
LOCKHART: Sorry to interrupt you, chaps, but you have to *act* now.  
  
[CRABBE and GOYLE, puff up and look threatening (a scene too late), and COLIN  
waits until LOCKHART's back is turned before sticking out his tongue]  
  
COLIN: [sighs, then reads from his script] Does this make any sense to  
either of you?  
  
CRABBE: [sticks his nose into his script, then holds it at arm's length]  
This is messed up. Can you read this? 'Zat a hundred seven? [Hands  
script to COLIN]  
  
COLIN: [looks at him, looks at script, looks back at him. CRABBE is  
easily a foot taller than him and about twice as heavy.] Close enough not  
to go there. I've got a hundred and forty. Hey, cool, a smiley-face!  
[Hands back CRABBE's script]  
  
GOYLE: [reading slowly from his script] And mine, two hundred:  
But though they jump not on a just... account,--  
As in these cases, where the aim... reports,  
'Tis oft with... difference--yet do they all confirm  
A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to... Kiprez?  
  
[Hermione, offstage, looks impressed]  
  
HERMIONE: He can read?  
  
DRACO: [shrugs] Wasn't it you who said something about hidden talents?  
  
COLIN: I guess I could be wrong, but that's what the script says, Goyle.  
  
NEVILLE: [Nervously] Whathowhathowhatho?  
  
CRABBE: Uhm... that guy just talked. [points at his script] Says he's a  
sailor?  
  
[NEVILLE scuttles onstage]  
  
COLIN: Hi Neville! What's up?  
  
NEVILLE: The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes So was I bid report here  
to the state By Signior Angelo?  
  
COLIN: Umm... what do you guys think?  
  
GOYLE: [face buried in script] This cannot be,  
By no assay of reason: 'tis a... payje-ant,  
To keep us in false gaze. When we consider  
The... importancy of Kiprez to the Turk,  
And let ourselves again but... unnerstand,  
That as it more concerns the Turk than... roads?  
So may he with more... fackle question bear it,  
For that it stands not in such... warlike brace,  
But... altogether lacks the... apples?  
That Roads is dressed in: if we make... thought of this,  
We must not think the Turk is so... unskilful  
To leave that latest which... concerns him first...  
Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,  
To wake and wage a... danger profit... less.  
  
COLIN: I don't think so... which road are we talking here?  
  
NEVILLE: Here is more news?  
  
[He exits stage left, running as fast as he can, and about thirty seconds  
later reenters stage right and out of breath]  
  
NEVILLE: The Ottomites reverend and gracious Steering with due course  
towards the isle of Rhodes Have there injointed them with an after fleet?  
  
CRABBE: Huh? What? Fleet? Roads?  
  
NEVILLE: Of thirty sail and now they do restem Their backward course,  
bearing with frank appearance Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano  
Your trusty and most valiant servitor With his free duty recommends you thus  
And prays you to believe him?  
  
COLIN: Why wouldn't I believe him? Wait, do I know him?  
  
CRABBE: Who?  
  
COLIN: Get this Montano! I don't think I've ever even met him.  
  
CRABBE: Hey, Draco. Who's this guy Marcus fatso's blabbing about?  
  
[Enter DEAN, DRACO, RON, SEAMUS and the Luggage, once more in lieu of an  
officer. NEVILLE exits stage left again running as fast as he can and beats  
his reentry time by ten seconds. He collapses on the ground, panting, to  
make a second officer]  
  
COLIN: Hi Dean! I'm kinda lost. Can you help? [to SEAMUS]  
Hi Seamus! You can help too if you want.  
  
  
SEAMUS: [ignoring Colin] So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;  
Neither my place nor aught I heard of business  
Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care  
Take hold on me, for my particular grief  
Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature  
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows  
And it is still itself. [looks at the Luggage]  
Is this thing following me around? Is it hungry or something?  
  
LOCKHART: [offstage] Shouldn't be... it ate two days ago.  
  
COLIN: Why, what's the matter?  
  
SEAMUS: My daughter! O, my daughter!  
  
COLIN: [startled] You have a daughter, Seamus? What happened? Is she  
dead?  
  
CRABBE: Uhhhh...  
  
SEAMUS: Ay, to me;  
She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted  
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;  
For nature so preposterously to err,  
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,  
Sans witchcraft could not.  
  
GINNY: Oh sure. Blame it on witches, why don't you.  
  
HERMIONE: Men!  
  
COLIN: ...That's not nice. Well, I suppose we'll find whoever umm...  
abused your... daughter and make him pay, huh, Seamus?  
  
SEAMUS: Humbly I thank your grace. [points at DEAN]  
Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,  
Your special mandate for the state-affairs  
Hath hither brought.  
  
COLIN: Dean?! I'm... um... I'm sure he's sorry, Seamus...  
  
GOYLE: Where are we? I'm lost.  
  
DRACO: [muttering] What else is new?  
  
COLIN: [to DEAN, trying to be severe] What do you have to say for  
yourself, Dean?  
  
SEAMUS: Nothing! but this is so.  
  
DEAN: [elbows him to one side] Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,  
My very noble and approved good masters,  
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,  
It is most true; true, I have married her:  
The very head and front of my offending  
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,  
And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace:  
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,  
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used  
Their dearest action in the tented field,  
And little of this great world can I speak,  
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,  
And therefore little shall I grace my cause  
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,  
I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver  
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,  
What conjuration and what mighty magic,  
For such proceeding I am charged withal,  
I won his daughter.  
  
SEAMUS: [shoves DEAN back] A maiden never bold;  
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion  
Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature,  
Of years, of country, credit, every thing,  
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!  
It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect  
That will confess perfection so could err  
Against all rules of nature, and must be driven  
To find out practises of cunning hell,  
Why this should be. I therefore vouch again  
That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,  
Or with some dram conjured to this effect,  
He wrought upon her.  
  
LOCKHART: Now, there! Here's acting! If we can keep up like this...  
  
COLIN: ... I don't think Dean would do something like that, Seamus... are  
you sure you have a daughter? Aren't you too young?  
  
LOCKHART: [sighs] I spoke too soon, didn't I?  
  
CRABBE: [to DEAN] Hey, speak up. You haven't said anything yet.  
  
DEAN: I do beseech you,  
Send for the lady to the Sagittary,  
And let her speak of me before her father:  
If you do find me foul in her report,  
The trust, the office I do hold of you,  
Not only take away, but let your sentence  
Even fall upon my life.  
  
COLIN: Okay. Somebody go get this girl then.  
  
[A strangled shriek from HERMIONE offstage]  
  
LOCKHART: Miss Granger, I'm the one who's supposed to be panicking here.  
You haven't even come on stage yet.  
  
HERMIONE: They're mangling it!  
  
LOCKHART: [dryly] I noticed.  
  
DEAN: Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.  
  
[DRACO exits, dragging NEVILLE behind him.]  
  
DRACO: [muttering] I'm not going because you told me to, Thomas, I'm going  
because it's in the script.  
  
DEAN: And, till she come, as truly as to heaven  
I do confess the vices of my blood,  
So justly to your grave ears I'll present  
How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,  
And she in mine.  
  
COLIN: Well, okay. Go ahead, Dean.  
  
DEAN: Her father loved me; oft invited me;  
Still question'd me the story of my life,  
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,  
That I have passed.  
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,  
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;  
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,  
Of moving accidents by flood and field  
Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,  
Of being taken by the insolent foe  
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence  
And portance in my travels' history:  
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,  
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven  
It was my hint to speak,--such was the process;  
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,  
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads  
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear  
Would Desdemona seriously incline:  
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:  
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,  
She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear  
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,  
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means  
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart  
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,  
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,  
But not intentively: I did consent,  
And often did beguile her of her tears,  
When I did speak of some distressful stroke  
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,  
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:  
She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,  
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:  
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd  
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,  
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,  
I should but teach him how to tell my story.  
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:  
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,  
And I loved her that she did pity them.  
This only is the witchcraft I have used:  
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.  
  
[Enter DRACO, GINNY, and NEVILLE. NEVILLE is still being dragged by his  
elbow and held onstage]  
  
NEVILLE: Let me go, Malfoy. I want to sit down....  
  
DRACO: No.  
  
COLIN: That... that was a cool story, Dean. If I were Ginny I'd fall in  
love with you too. Seamus... um... Ginny's not your daughter, so calm down,  
okay? Really.  
  
[CRABBE and GOYLE snore from where they laid down during DEAN's monologue]  
  
SEAMUS: I pray you, hear her speak:  
If she confess that she was half the wooer,  
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame  
Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress:  
Do you perceive in all this noble company  
Where most you owe obedience?  
  
GINNY: [takes a deep breath and takes DEAN's hand. RON goes red in the face]  
My noble father,  
I do perceive here a divided duty:  
To you I am bound for life and education;  
My life and education both do learn me  
How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;  
I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband,  
And so much duty as my mother show'd  
To you, preferring you before her father,  
So much I challenge that I may profess  
Due to the Moor my lord.  
  
SEAMUS: God be wi' you! I have done.  
Please it your grace, on to the state-affairs:  
I had rather to adopt a child than get it.  
Come hither, Moor:  
I here do give thee that with all my heart  
Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart  
I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,  
I am glad at soul I have no other child:  
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,  
To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.  
  
COLIN: [confused] So... we're not fighting anymore? Ginny likes Dean and  
that's okay with you?  
  
LOCKHART: Acting, Mr. Creevey! It's called *acting*!  
  
SEAMUS: So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;  
We lose it not, so long as we can smile.  
He bears the sentence well that nothing bears  
But the free comfort which from thence he hears,  
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow  
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.  
These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,  
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:  
But words are words; I never yet did hear  
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.  
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.  
  
COLIN: Oh yeah. These Turk guys have ships, but we don't know how many  
and I don't think they're evenm really there, right? So what do we do?  
  
DEAN: The tyrant custom, most grave senators,  
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war  
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise  
A natural and prompt alacrity  
I find in hardness, and do undertake  
These present wars against the Ottomites.  
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,  
I crave fit disposition for my wife.  
Due reference of place and exhibition,  
With such accommodation and besort  
As levels with her breeding.  
  
COLIN: You're worried about Ginny? That's sweet. Well... Seamus thinks  
she's his daughter, so she can stay with him. I mean, if you're asking me  
what I think.  
  
SEAMUS: I'll not have it so.  
  
DEAN: Nor I.  
  
GINNY: Nor I; I would not there reside,  
To put my father in impatient thoughts  
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,  
To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear;  
And let me find a charter in your voice,  
To assist my simpleness.  
  
COLIN: Huh?  
  
GINNY: That I did love the Moor to live with him,  
My downright violence and storm of fortunes  
May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued  
Even to the very quality of my lord:  
I saw Othello's visage in his mind,  
And to his honour and his valiant parts  
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.  
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,  
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,  
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,  
And I a heavy interim shall support  
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.  
  
DEAN: Let her have your voices.  
Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not,  
To please the palate of my appetite,  
Nor to comply with heat--the young affects  
In me defunct--and proper satisfaction.  
But to be free and bounteous to her mind:  
And heaven defend your good souls, that you think  
I will your serious and great business scant  
For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys  
Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness  
My speculative and officed instruments,  
That my disports corrupt and taint my business,  
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,  
And all indign and base adversities  
Make head against my estimation!  
  
COLIN: Ummm... all right. Sure, whatever.  
  
CRABBE: [waking up] Duh?  
  
DEAN: With all my heart.  
  
[COLIN stares stupidly at everyone else, at a loss for words.]  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, yelling] Colin, get off your script!! [GOYLE wakes  
up with a start and directs a dirty look at her]  
  
COLIN: What, this? [stands up and retrieves the script, then thumbs  
through it] Where are we? Am I on yet?  
  
LOCKHART: [sighs] Ignore him, everyone! Go on to the next line, Mr.  
Thomas.  
  
DEAN: So please your grace, my ancient;  
A man he is of honest and trust:  
To his conveyance I assign my wife,  
With what else needful your good grace shall think  
To be sent after me.  
  
COLIN: [reading from his script] Valiant Othello, we must straight employ  
you Against the general enemy Ottoman. [to SEAMUS] I did not see you;  
welcome, gentle signior; We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight. Am  
I right? How was that?  
  
[LOCKHART refuses to answer]  
  
GOYLE: Aydoo...brave More, use Des... Desdee... that girl well.  
  
[SEAMUS herds COLIN, GOYLE, and CRABBE offstage with small assistance from  
NEVILLE. The Luggage follows them and settles into a 'sitting' position  
next to LOCKHART]  
  
DEAN: My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,  
My Desdemona must I leave to thee:  
I prithee, let thy wife attend on her:  
And bring them after in the best advantage.  
  
[DEAN takes Ginny's other hand and looks into her eyes soulfully. RON, looks  
about to explode]  
  
DEAN, cont'd: Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour  
Of love, of worldly matters and direction,  
To spend with thee: we must obey the time.  
  
[Exit DEAN and GINNY, holding hands]  
  
RON: Iago,--  
  
DRACO: [cheerfully, more or less lost in his part] What say'st thou, noble  
heart?  
  
RON: [trying to act natural] What will I do, thinkest thou?  
  
DRACO: Why, go to bed, and sleep.  
  
COLIN: [offstage] But it's not even lunchtime yet...  
  
[There is a brief scuffle during which HERMIONE and GINNY corner COLIN and  
gag him]  
  
RON: I will incontinently drown myself. [thinks for a minute] What the  
hell did I just say?  
  
DRACO: If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why,  
thou silly gentleman!  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, sweetly] Does this mean you love him *now*, Malfoy?  
  
RON: [trying to ignore Hermione] It is silliness to live when to live is  
torment; and then have we a prescription to die when death is our  
physician.  
  
DRACO: O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four  
times seven years; and since I could distinguish  
betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man  
that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I  
would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I  
would change my humanity with a baboon.  
  
RON: [startled] Did you just call me a baboon? [At a glare from Hermione,  
he clears his throat] Hm. What should I do? I confess it is my  
shame to be so fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.  
  
DRACO: Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus  
or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which  
our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant  
nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up  
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or  
distract it with many, either to have it sterile  
with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the  
power and corrigible authority of this lies in our  
wills. If the balance of our lives had not one  
scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the  
blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us  
to most preposterous conclusions: but we have  
reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal  
stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that  
you call love to be a sect or scion.  
  
RON: It cannot be.  
  
DRACO: [throws an arm around Ron's shoulders and speaks conspiratorially,  
again fully involved in his part]It is merely a lust of the blood and a  
permission of the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown  
cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy  
friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with  
cables of perdurable toughness; I could never  
better stead thee than now. Put money in thy  
purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with  
an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It  
cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her  
love to the Moor,-- put money in thy purse,--nor he  
his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou  
shalt see an answerable sequestration:--put but  
money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in  
their wills: fill thy purse with money:--the food  
that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be  
to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must  
change for youth: when she is sated with his body,  
she will find the error of her choice: she must  
have change, she must: therefore put money in thy  
purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a  
more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money  
thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt  
an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not  
too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou  
shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of  
drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek  
thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than  
to be drowned and go without her.  
  
RON: [ducks away, looking sick] Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend  
on the issue?  
  
LOCKHART: [whispering, to HERMIONE] Weasley's not a bad actor, is he?  
  
HERMIONE: He's not acting.  
  
DRACO: Thou art sure of me:--go, make money:--I have told  
thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I  
hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no  
less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge  
against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost  
thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many  
events in the womb of time which will be delivered.  
Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more  
of this to-morrow. Adieu.  
  
RON: Where shall we meet i' the morning?  
  
DRACO: At my lodging.  
  
[HERMIONE snickers audibly from offstage. Both RON and DRACO glare at her,  
and RON goes red in the face again]  
  
RON: I'll... um... I'll be with thee betimes.  
  
DRACO: Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?  
  
RON: [blankly] Hear what? Oh! What say you?  
  
DRACO: No more of drowning, do you hear?  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, laughing] Ooh, isn't that sweet?  
  
RON: [glowering at her] What did I ever do to you?  
  
LOCKHART: [amused] That's enough, Miss Granger.  
  
RON: I am changed: I'll go sell all my land.  
  
[RON exits quickly]  
  
RON: [offstage, singsonging and purposefully mispronouncing her name] Hey,  
Her-me-own.... [smiles nastily] We need to talk....  
  
DRACO: [ignoring them] Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:  
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,  
If I would time expend with such a snipe.  
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:  
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets  
He has done my office: I know not if't be true;  
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,  
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;  
The better shall my purpose work on him.  
Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:  
To get his place and to plume up my will  
In double knavery--How, how? Let's see:--  
After some time, to abuse Othello's ear  
That he is too familiar with his wife.  
He hath a person and a smooth dispose  
To be suspected, framed to make women false.  
The Moor is of a free and open nature,  
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,  
And will as tenderly be led by the nose  
As asses are.  
I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night  
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.  
  
LOCKHART: Well, at least we have one actor here.  
  
  



	3. Act II

The Play's the Thing: Act II scene i  
  
LOCKHART: All right, you lot. Now we're at a port in Cyprus. We're not in  
Venice anymore.  
  
COLIN: We were in Ven--? murgh!  
  
[HERMIONE. who has crept up behind him, re-gags COLIN quite efficiently]  
  
LOCKHART: Ah, yes. Thank you, Miss Granger. Get him onstage, would you  
please? Mr. Creevey, just gurgle whenever you think you have a line.  
  
COLIN: Mmnh!  
  
[COLIN stands on the stage forlornly, where he is joined by SEAMUS, who has  
taken the part of Montano and joined the bit players since he doesn't have  
any more lines as Brabantio, and GOYLE, whose scriptbook now sports a  
cartoony sketch of a teddy bear on the back]  
  
SEAMUS: What from the cape can you discern at sea?  
  
COLIN: Mrff! Gkheee? Ngngh...  
  
SEAMUS: [looks worried and glances offstage at the Luggage, which hasn't  
moved to follow him yet] Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;  
A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:  
If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,  
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,  
Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?  
  
GOYLE: A... seg-red-ayshon of the Turkish... fleet:  
For do but stand up.. on the foaming shore,  
The... children bellow...? seems to pelt the clouds;  
The wind-shaked surge, with high and... mons-truss mane,  
seems to cast water on the... burning beer...  
And... quench... the guards of the... ever-fixed pole:  
I never did like... mole station view  
On the... en-chay-fed... food.  
  
LOCKHART: At least he's trying...  
  
SEAMUS: If that the Turkish fleet  
Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd:  
It is impossible they bear it out.  
  
[Enter NEVILLE, pale and shaky]  
  
NEVILLE: News, lads our wars are done The desperate tempest hath so bang'd  
the Turks That their designment halts a noble ship of Venice Hath seen a  
grievous wreck and sufferance On most part of their fleet?  
  
SEAMUS: How! [a beat, during which he freezes in place, then snaps back  
into motion] is this true?  
  
NEVILLE: [even shakier] The ship is here put in A Veronesa Michael Cassio  
Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello Is come on shore the Moor himself at  
sea And is in full commission here for Cyprus?  
  
SEAMUS: I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor.  
  
NEVILLE: [white-faced] But this same Cassio though he speak of comfort  
Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly And prays the Moor be safe for  
they were parted With foul and violent tempest?  
  
SEAMUS: [still glancing nervously at the quiescent Luggage every so often]  
Pray heavens he be;  
For I have served him, and the man commands  
Like a full soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho!  
As well to see the vessel that's come in  
As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,  
Even till we make the main and the aerial blue  
An indistinct regard.  
  
NEVILLE: Come, let's do so For every minute is expectancy Of more arrivance?  
  
[NEVILLE runs offstage, still white-faced. Enter HARRY]  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, consolingly] Oh, Neville, it's not really that bad, is  
it? You did just fine...  
  
DRACO: [interestedly] When did you eat *that*, Longbottom?  
  
HERMIONE: ...You're not helping.  
  
DRACO: [insincerely] Sorry.  
  
HARRY: Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,  
That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens  
Give him defence against the elements,  
For I have lost us him on a dangerous sea.  
  
SEAMUS: Is he well shipp'd?  
  
DRACO: [offstage, insinuating] Yes, Potter, is he?  
  
HARRY: [ignoring DRACO] His bark is stoutly timber'd, his pilot  
Of very expert and approved allowance;  
Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,  
Stand in bold cure.  
  
DRACO: [offstage] That would be a yes, then, would it?  
  
DEAN: [offstage, blushing furiously] I think that's just about enough  
innuendo out of you for one rehearsal, Malfoy!  
  
[DRACO laughs]  
  
[Enter CRABBE, whose script is now covered in blue ink drawings of daisies]  
  
CRABBE: Duhhh.  
  
HARRY: ... Was that his line?  
  
LOCKHART: Pretend it was, Harry, and let's keep on.  
  
HARRY: [clears throat] What noise?  
  
CRABBE: [looking at his drawings] A ship. Look.  
  
HARRY: [gives CRABBE a look, then glances offstage at DRACO, who shrugs]  
... My hopes do shape him for the governor.  
  
[From offstage, the sound of cannon fire is heard. Everyone onstage jumps  
and looks offstage. LOCKHART waves, twirling his wand]  
  
LOCKHART: We must have *some* cues, you know.  
  
RON: [muttering to himself] Lucky you didn't blow somebody's head off, you  
git.  
  
GOYLE: They do... discharge their shot of... coo-ur-tessy:  
Our... friends at least.  
  
HARRY: I pray you, sir, go forth,  
And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived.  
  
GOYLE: Okay.  
  
[Exit GOYLE]  
  
SEAMUS: [relaxed now] But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?  
  
RON: *Better* not be....  
  
[A nervous giggle from GINNY]  
  
HARRY: [moving on quickly] Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid  
That paragons description and wild fame;  
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,  
And in the essential vesture of creation  
Does tire the ingener.  
[reenter GOYLE, who has added another daisy to his script]  
How now! who has put in?  
  
GOYLE: [speaking slowly and carefully, without looking at his script] 'Tis  
one Iago, ancient to the general.  
  
[GOYLE looks offstage at DRACO, who nods briefly. GOYLE looks relieved]  
  
HARRY: Has had most favourable and happy speed:  
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,  
The gutter'd rocks and congregated sands--  
Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,--  
As having sense of beauty, do omit  
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by  
The divine Desdemona.  
  
[GINNY, offstage, blushes and bats her eyes]  
  
SEAMUS: What is she?  
  
DRACO: [offstage] Another very good question...  
  
HARRY: She that I spake of, our great captain's captain,  
Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,  
Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts  
A se'nnight's speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,  
And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,  
That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,  
Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's arms,  
Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits  
And bring all Cyprus comfort!  
[Enter DRACO, HERMIONE, GINNY, RON, and the Luggage posing as an attendant.  
SEAMUS edges away]  
O, behold,  
The riches of the ship is come on shore!  
Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.  
Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven,  
Before, behind thee, and on every hand,  
Enwheel thee round!  
  
GINNY: [blushing] I...um... I thank you, valiant Cassio.  
What tidings can you tell me of my lord?  
  
HARRY: He is not yet arrived: nor know I aught  
But that he's well and will be shortly here.  
[muttering] I hope.  
  
GINNY: O, but I fear--How lost you company?  
  
HARRY: The great contention of the sea and skies  
Parted our fellowship--But, hark! a sail.  
  
[The sound of cannons is heard again. This time no one jumps]  
  
COLIN: Mrgghrd! MmmMhn!  
  
GOYLE: This... like-wise... is a friend.  
  
HARRY: See for the news.  
[Exit GOYLE, dragging the still-gagged COLIN with him. SEAMUS looks his  
script over and follows]  
Good ancient, you are welcome.  
  
RON: [under his breath] Now *there's* acting. [HERMIONE kicks him discreetly]  
  
HARRY: [to HERMIONE] Welcome, mistress.  
Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,  
That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding  
That gives me this bold show of courtesy.  
[thinks for a minute, then gives her a quick kiss]  
  
DRACO: [grinning] Sir, would she give you so much of her lips  
As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,  
You'll have enough.  
  
GINNY: Alas, she has no speech.  
  
DRACO: [shakes his head ruefully] In faith, too much;  
I find it still, when I have list to sleep:  
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,  
She puts her tongue a little in her heart,  
And chides with thinking.  
  
HERMIONE: [in hurt tones] You have little cause to say so.  
  
DRACO: [playfully] Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,  
Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your kitchens,  
Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,  
Players in your housewifery, and housewives' in your beds.  
  
LOCKHART: And back we are to the actual acting. Very nice, Miss Granger,  
Mr. Malfoy.  
  
GINNY: O, fie upon thee, slanderer!  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] Which one?  
  
DRACO: Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:  
You rise to play and go to bed to work.  
  
HERMIONE: [huffily] You shall not write *my* praise.  
  
DRACO: [aggreeably] No, let me not.  
  
GINNY: What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst  
praise me?  
  
DRACO: O gentle lady, do not put me to't;  
For I am nothing, if not critical.  
  
RON: [aside to HARRY] And the next contestant is Draco Malfoy; special  
subject, the bloody obvious....  
  
GINNY: [pleadingly] Come on assay. There's one gone to the harbour?  
  
DRACO: [rolls his eyes] Ay, madam.  
  
GINNY: I am not merry; but I do beguile  
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.  
Come, how wouldst thou praise me?  
  
DRACO: [snappish] I am about it; but indeed my invention  
Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize;  
It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours,  
And thus she is deliver'd.  
If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,  
The one's for use, the other useth it.  
  
GINNY: Well praised! How if she be black and witty?  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] Coffee?  
  
DRACO: If she be black, and thereto have a wit,  
She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.  
  
SEAMUS: That was gonna be my next guess.  
  
GINNY: Worse and worse.  
  
HERMIONE: How if fair and foolish?  
  
COLIN: [offstage] Nrg!  
  
DRACO: She never yet was foolish that was fair;  
For even her folly help'd her to an heir.  
  
GINNY: These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i'  
the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for  
her that's foul and foolish?  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] This I gotta hear.  
  
DRACO: There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,  
But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] Short and incomprehensible. Anyone else follow that?  
  
[The Luggage moves offstage and goes to stand behind SEAMUS. It yawns]  
  
SEAMUS: [jittery] I'll... um... I'll be shutting up now.  
  
GINNY: O heavy ignorance! thou praisest the worst best.  
But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving  
woman indeed, one that, in the authority of her  
merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?  
  
DRACO: [ticks items off on his fingers thoughtfully]  
She that was ever fair and never proud,  
Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,  
Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,  
Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'  
She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,  
Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,  
She that in wisdom never was so frail  
To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;  
She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,  
See suitors following and not look behind,  
She was a wight, if ever such wight were,--  
  
GINNY: [intrigued] To do what?  
  
DEAN: [offstage] I can think of a few things....  
  
DRACO: [spreads his hands theatrically] To suckle fools and chronicle small  
beer.  
  
DEAN: [offstage] And those weren't any of them.  
  
GINNY: O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn  
of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say  
you, Cassio? is he not a most profane and liberal  
counsellor?  
  
COLIN: [offstage] Mrgh... nghoh? Mrghi? Nuh?!  
  
HARRY: He speaks home, madam: You may relish him more in  
the soldier than in the scholar.  
  
DRACO: [aside, gleefully] [Aside] He takes her by the palm: ay, well said,  
whisper: with as little a web as this will I  
ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon  
her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own courtship.  
You say true; 'tis so, indeed: if such tricks as  
these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had  
been better you had not kissed your three fingers so  
oft, which now again you are most apt to play the  
sir in. Very good; well kissed! an excellent  
courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers  
to your lips? would they were clyster-pipes for your sake!  
  
[The Luggage yawns again and bumps into SEAMUS. He shrieks and bolts across  
the stage]  
  
DRACO: [stifling a snicker] The Moor! I know his trumpet.  
  
HARRY: [looking like he wants to laugh] 'Tis truly so.  
  
GINNY: Let's meet him and receive him.  
  
HARRY: Lo, where he comes!  
  
[Enter DEAN, the now-recovered NEVILLE who goes white-faced again almost  
immediately, and the gagged COLIN]  
  
DEAN: [to GINNY] O my fair warrior!  
  
GINNY: My dear Othello!  
  
DEAN: It gives me wonder great as my content  
To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!  
If after every tempest come such calms,  
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!  
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas  
Olympus-high and duck again as low  
As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,  
'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,  
My soul hath her content so absolute  
That not another comfort like to this  
Succeeds in unknown fate.  
  
GINNY: [bats her eyes at him] The heavens forbid  
But that our loves and comforts should increase,  
Even as our days do grow!  
  
DEAN: Amen to that, sweet powers!  
I cannot speak enough of this content;  
It stops me here; it is too much of joy:  
And this, and this, the greatest discords be  
[kisses her. RON clenches his fists]  
That e'er our hearts shall make!  
  
DRACO: [Aside] O, you are well tuned now!  
But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,  
As honest as I am.  
  
DEAN: Come, let us to the castle.  
News, friends; our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd.  
How does my old acquaintance of this isle?  
Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;  
I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,  
I prattle out of fashion, and I dote  
In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,  
Go to the bay and disembark my coffers:  
Bring thou the master to the citadel;  
He is a good one, and his worthiness  
Does challenge much respect. Come, Desdemona,  
Once more, well met at Cyprus.  
  
[Exit DEAN and GINNY, holding hands, then HARRY and HERMIONE. NEVILLE  
follows along with COLIN]  
  
DRACO: [conspiratorially, to Ron] Do thou meet me presently at the harbour.  
Come hither. If thou be'st valiant,-- as, they say, base men being in love  
have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them--list  
me. The lieutenant tonight watches on the court of guard:--first, I must  
tell thee this--Desdemona is directly in love with him.  
  
RON: [still fuming about DEAN and GINNY] With him! why, 'tis not possible.  
  
DRACO: Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed.  
Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor,  
but for bragging and telling her fantastical lies:  
and will she love him still for prating? let not  
thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed;  
and what delight shall she have to look on the  
devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of  
sport, there should be, again to inflame it and to  
give satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in favour,  
sympathy in years, manners and beauties; all which  
the Moor is defective in: now, for want of these  
required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will  
find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge,  
disrelish and abhor the Moor; very nature will  
instruct her in it and compel her to some second  
choice. Now, sir, this granted,--as it is a most  
pregnant and unforced position--who stands so  
eminent in the degree of this fortune as Cassio  
does? a knave very voluble; no further  
conscionable than in putting on the mere form of  
civil and humane seeming, for the better compassing  
of his salt and most hidden loose affection? why,  
none; why, none: a slipper and subtle knave, a  
finder of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and  
counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never  
present itself; a devilish knave. Besides, the  
knave is handsome, young, and hath all those  
requisites in him that folly and green minds look  
after: a pestilent complete knave; and the woman  
hath found him already.  
  
HARRY: [offstage, staring at DRACO] You were right, Hermione... he *is*  
perfect for that part....  
  
HERMIONE: Of course.  
  
RON: I cannot believe that in her; she's full of  
most blessed condition.  
  
DRACO: Blessed fig's-end! the wine she drinks is made of  
grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never  
have loved the Moor. Blessed pudding! Didst thou  
not see her paddle with the palm of his hand? didst  
not mark that?  
  
RON: [confused, finally in his role] Yes, that I did; but that was but  
courtesy.  
  
DRACO: Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue  
to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They met  
so near with their lips that their breaths embraced  
together. Villanous thoughts, Roderigo! when these  
mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand comes  
the master and main exercise, the incorporate  
conclusion, Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me: I  
have brought you from Venice. Watch you to-night;  
for the command, I'll lay't upon you. Cassio knows  
you not. I'll not be far from you: do you find  
some occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking  
too loud, or tainting his discipline; or from what  
other course you please, which the time shall more  
favourably minister.  
  
RON: Well....  
  
DRACO: [persuasively, laying a hand on Ron's shoulder] Sir, he is rash and  
very sudden in choler, and haply may strike at you: provoke him, that he  
may; for even out of that will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny; whose  
qualification shall come into no true taste again but by the displanting of  
Cassio. So shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by the means I  
shall then have to prefer them; and the impediment most profitably removed,  
without the which there were no expectation of our prosperity.  
  
RON: [nods] I will do this, if I can bring it to any  
opportunity.  
  
DRACO: I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel:  
I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.  
  
RON: Adieu.  
  
[Exit Ron, who once off the stage shakes his head]  
  
RON: Umm... what just happened?  
  
HERMIONE: [helpfully] You just agreed to help kill Harry.  
  
RON: What?!  
  
LOCKHART: Acting. It's acting. This is a play.  
  
HARRY: [offstage, under his breath and still stairng at DRACO] Says you.  
  
DRACO: That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;  
That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit:  
The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,  
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,  
And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona  
A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;  
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure  
I stand accountant for as great a sin,  
But partly led to diet my revenge,  
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor  
Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof  
Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;  
And nothing can or shall content my soul  
Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife,  
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor  
At least into a jealousy so strong  
That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do,  
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash  
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,  
I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,  
Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb--  
For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too--  
Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me.  
For making him egregiously an ass  
And practising upon his peace and quiet  
Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused:  
Knavery's plain face is never seen tin used.  
  
[Exit DRACO. HARRY pulls him off to the side and they have a quiet  
conversation]  
  
COLIN: Frrp. Mnr gn kjh!  
  
LOCKHART: Someone ungag him. I think he's learned his lesson.  
  
  
End scene i  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act II scene ii  
  
  
NEVILLE: I won't.  
  
HERMIONE: [wheedling] Come on, Neville, it's just one speech, you can do  
it....  
  
NEVILLE: No!  
  
[There is a brief scuffle, ending with NEVILLE being bodily carried onstage  
by CRABBE and GOYLE, then dropped. Exit CRABBE and GOYLE]  
  
NEVILLE: [goes white] It... it is... um... it.... [faints]  
  
[Silence falls, broken only by SEAMUS whimpering under the stage. The  
Luggage wanders over to Neville and kicks at him lightly]  
  
LOCKHART: Riiiight. Next scene?  
  
End scene ii  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Othello, Act II scene iii  
  
  
LOCKHART: Inside the castle now, for the benefit of those who have yet to  
open their scripts. Mr. Creevey, Mr. Crabbe, that means you.  
  
[Enter DEAN, GINNY, HARRY, a subdued COLIN, and GOYLE]  
  
DEAN: Good Michael, look you to the guard to-night:  
Let's teach ourselves that honourable stop,  
Not to outsport discretion.  
  
HARRY: Iago hath direction what to do;  
But, notwithstanding, with my personal eye  
Will I look to't.  
  
DRACO: [offstage] Will you? How nice...  
  
DEAN: Iago is most honest.  
Michael, good night: to-morrow with your earliest  
Let me have speech with you.  
  
DRACO: Weren't you the one who said there'd been enough innuendo?  
  
DEAN: [ignores DRACO. To GINNY] Come, my dear love,  
The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;  
That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you.  
Good night.  
  
[Exit all but HARRY, who sits crosslegged on the stage. Enter DRACO, who  
sits next to him without hesitation]  
  
HARRY: Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch.  
  
DEAN: [offstage, rolling his eyes. Imitates HARRY] In a few minutes, that  
is... [Both boys onstage ignore him] Did I just speak?  
  
DRACO: Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' the  
clock. Our general cast us thus early for the love  
of his Desdemona; who let us not therefore blame:  
he hath not yet made wanton the night with her; and  
she is sport for Jove.  
  
HARRY: She's a most exquisite lady.  
  
DRACO: And, I'll warrant her, full of game.  
  
HARRY: [smiling slightly] Indeed, she's a most fresh and delicate creature.  
  
DRACO: [leaning back casually] What an eye she has! methinks it sounds a  
parley of *provocation*.  
  
HARRY: ... An *inviting* eye... and yet methinks right modest.  
  
DRACO: And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?  
  
HARRY: [beat, then smiles more broadly] She is indeed perfection.  
  
DRACO: Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I  
have a stoup of wine; and here without are a brace  
of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to  
the health of black Othello.  
  
HARRY: [sighs] Not tonight, good Iago: I have very poor and  
unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish  
courtesy would invent some other custom of  
entertainment.  
  
DRACO: [persuasively] O, they are our friends; but one cup: I'll drink  
for you.  
  
HARRY: I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that was  
craftily qualified too, and, behold, what innovation  
it makes here: I am unfortunate in the infirmity,  
and dare not task my weakness with any more.  
  
DRACO: [laughs] What, man! 'tis a night of revels: the gallants  
desire it.  
  
HARRY: Where are they?  
  
DRACO: Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.  
  
HARRY: [frowns at DRACO] I'll do't, but it dislikes me.  
  
[He gets up and exits, looking irritated]  
  
DRACO: If I can fasten but one cup upon him,  
With that which he hath drunk to-night already,  
He'll be as full of quarrel and offence  
As my young mistress' dog. Now, my sick fool Roderigo,  
Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out,  
To Desdemona hath to-night caroused  
Potations pottle-deep; and he's to watch:  
Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,  
That hold their honours in a wary distance,  
The very elements of this warlike isle,  
Have I to-night fluster'd with flowing cups,  
And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards,  
Am I to put our Cassio in some action  
That may offend the isle.--But here they come:  
If consequence do but approve my dream,  
My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.  
  
[Reenter HARRY, with SEAMUS, COLIN, and NEVILLE following. NEVILLE is  
carrying a pitcher containing what is probably pumpkin juice]  
  
HARRY: 'Fore God, they have given me a rouse already.  
  
SEAMUS: Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am  
a soldier.  
  
DRACO: Some wine, ho! [NEVILLE passes over the pitcher. DRACO sings]  
And let me the canakin clink, clink;  
And let me the canakin clink  
A soldier's a man;  
A life's but a span;  
Why, then, let a soldier drink.  
Some wine, boys!  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage] Where'd he learn to sing like that?  
  
HARRY: [appreciative] 'Fore God, an excellent song.  
  
DRACO: I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are  
most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and  
your swag-bellied Hollander--Drink, ho!--are nothing  
to your English.  
  
HARRY: [completely straight-faced] Is your Englishman so expert in his  
drinking?  
  
DRACO: Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead  
drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he  
gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle  
can be filled.  
  
HARRY: To the health of our general!  
  
SEAMUS: I am for it, lieutenant; and I'll do you justice.  
  
[In passing the pitcher, NEVILLE spills it all over COLIN]  
  
DRACO: [singing again] O sweet England!  
King Stephen was a worthy peer,  
His breeches cost him but a crown;  
He held them sixpence all too dear,  
With that he call'd the tailor lown.  
He was a wight of high renown,  
And thou art but of low degree:  
'Tis pride that pulls the country down;  
Then take thine auld cloak about thee.  
Some wine, ho!  
  
HARRY: Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.  
  
DRACO: ...Will you hear't again?  
  
HARRY: No; for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that  
does those things. Well, God's above all; and there  
be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved.  
  
[The bit players look confused. DRACO just nods]  
  
DRACO: It's true, good lieutenant.  
  
HARRY: [seriously] For mine own part,--no offence to the general, nor  
any man of quality,--I hope to be saved.  
  
DRACO: And so do I too, lieutenant.  
  
HERMIONE: [frowns, then speaks to RON] I don't think they're talking about  
what we think they're talking about...  
  
RON: Tell me what they're supposed to be talking about, and I'll agree or  
disagree with you then.  
  
HERMIONE: [exasperated] You're hopeless.  
  
HARRY: Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the  
lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient. Let's  
have no more of this; let's to our affairs.--Forgive  
us our sins!--Gentlemen, let's look to our business.  
Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my  
ancient; this is my right hand, and this is my left:  
I am not drunk now; I can stand well enough, and  
speak well enough.  
  
[There are varying degrees of agreement among the others onstage. COLIN  
looks around, confused]  
  
COLIN: It's only pumpkin juice, Harry...  
  
HARRY: [deadpan] Why, very well then; you must not think then that I am  
drunk.  
  
[DRACO suppresses a laugh, but COLIN looks relieved]  
  
COLIN: That's all right then.  
  
[Exit HARRY, laughing to himself]  
  
SEAMUS: To the platform, masters; come, let's set the watch.  
  
DRACO: [shakes his head] You see this fellow that is gone before;  
He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar  
And give direction: and do but see his vice;  
'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,  
The one as long as the other: 'tis pity of him.  
I fear the trust Othello puts him in.  
On some odd time of his infirmity,  
Will shake this island.  
  
COLIN: Huh?  
  
SEAMUS: But is he often thus?  
  
DRACO: 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep:  
He'll watch the horologe a double set,  
If drink rock not his cradle.  
  
COLIN: But... but it's *pumpkin juice*!  
  
SEAMUS: It were well  
The general were put in mind of it.  
Perhaps he sees it not; or his good nature  
Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio,  
And looks not on his evils: is not this true?  
  
[Enter RON]  
  
DRACO: [Aside to him] How now, Roderigo!  
I pray you, after the lieutenant; go.  
  
[Exit RON]  
  
RON: Why did I even bother going onstage?  
  
LOCKHART: It's in the script, Mr. Weasley.  
  
RON: Like that's a good excuse. Don't you think I have better things to do  
than read the script?  
  
LOCKHART: I'm sure you think you do.  
  
SEAMUS: And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor  
Should hazard such a place as his own second  
With one of an ingraft infirmity:  
It were an honest action to say  
So to the Moor.  
  
DRACO: Not I, for this fair island:  
I do... love Cassio well; and would do much  
To cure him of this evil--But, hark! what noise?  
  
[Sounds of a scuffle from offstage. RON enters at a dead run, followed  
closely by an obviously angry HARRY]  
  
RON: I'm *sorry*! All right? I'm sorry! Whatever I did, I'm sorry!!  
  
HARRY: You rogue! you rascal!  
  
SEAMUS: What's the matter... lieutenant?  
  
HARRY: A knave teach me my duty?  
I'll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle!  
  
RON: *Beat* me?!  
  
HARRY: Dost thou prate, rogue?  
  
[HARRY backhands RON across the face. Silence falls for a beat. All the  
others are looking at HARRY, completely shocked, except DRACO, who looks  
impressed]  
  
SEAMUS: [desperately] Hey! [takes hold of HARRY's arm and holds him back]  
Stop it!  
  
HARRY: Let me go, sir,  
Or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard.  
  
SEAMUS: [The light of understanding dawns in his eyes] Come, come,  
you're drunk.  
  
HARRY: Drunk!  
  
[HARRY and SEAMUS proceed to fight. SEAMUS trips over the forgotten pitcher]  
  
DRACO: [Aside to RON] Away, I say; go out, and cry a mutiny. And read the  
script, Weasley, you're getting embarrassing.  
  
[Exit RON, massaging his face. DRACO moves over to hold HARRY back in  
sometihng apporximating a half-nelson. COLIN looks even more confused than  
ever]  
  
COLIN: But... but it was just *pumpkin juice*!  
  
DRACO: [Alternating to HARRY and the other actors at large]  
Nay, good lieutenant,--alas, gentlemen;--  
Help, ho!--Lieutenant,--sir,--Montano,--sir;  
Help, masters!--Here's a goodly watch indeed!  
[a bell rings]  
Who's that which rings the bell?--Diablo, ho!  
The town will rise: God's will, lieutenant, hold!  
You will be shamed for ever.  
  
[Enter DEAN, flanked by CRABBE and GOYLE. GOYLE waves at DRACO, who ignores  
him]  
  
DEAN: What is the matter here?  
  
RON: [offstage, angrily] My best friend just hit me in the face, that's  
what's wrong!  
  
LOCKHART: [breezily] It was in the script, Mr. Weasley.  
  
RON: Easy for you to say. *You* aren't going to have half your face a  
bruise tomorrow!  
  
SEAMUS: 'Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.  
  
[SEAMUS collapses to the ground. NEVILLE goes immediately white, gives HARRY  
a terrified look and dashes offstage]  
  
COLIN: But... but....  
  
DEAN: Hold, for your lives!  
  
[DRACO is still holding HARRY in the half-nelson, although HARRY has stopped  
struggling]  
  
DRACO: Hold, ho! Lieutenant,--sir--Montano,--gentlemen,--  
Have you forgot all sense of place and duty?  
Hold! the general speaks to you; hold, hold, for shame!  
  
DEAN: Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?  
Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that  
Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?  
For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl:  
He that stirs next to carve for his own rage  
Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.  
Silence that dreadful bell: it frights the isle  
From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?  
Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving,  
Speak, who began this? on thy love, I charge thee.  
  
DRACO: [releases HARRY and steps forward, looking earnest]  
I do not know: friends all but now, even now,  
In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom  
Devesting them for bed; and then, but now--  
As if some planet had unwitted men--  
Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast,  
In opposition bloody. I cannot speak  
Any beginning to this peevish odds;  
And would in action glorious I had lost  
Those legs that brought me to a part of it!  
  
DEAN: How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?  
  
HARRY: [sulky] I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.  
  
DEAN: Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;  
The gravity and stillness of your youth  
The world hath noted, and your name is great  
In mouths of wisest censure: what's the matter,  
That you unlace your reputation thus  
And spend your rich opinion for the name  
Of a night-brawler? give me answer to it.  
  
SEAMUS: Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger:  
Your officer, Iago, can inform you,--  
While I spare speech, which something now  
offends me,--  
Of all that I do know: nor know I aught  
By me that's said or done amiss this night;  
Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,  
And to defend ourselves it be a sin  
When violence assails us.  
  
COLIN: But... but... Seamus, you're not hurt at all! Stop fooling around  
now, this is creepy!  
  
DEAN: Now, by heaven,  
My blood begins my safer guides to rule;  
And passion, having my best judgment collied,  
Assays to lead the way: if I once stir,  
Or do but lift this arm, the best of you  
Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know  
How this foul rout began, who set it on;  
And he that is approved in this offence,  
Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,  
Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,  
Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,  
To manage private and domestic quarrel,  
In night, and on the court and guard of safety!  
'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?  
  
[DRACO looks away. SEAMUS gets to his feet]  
  
SEAMUS: If partially affined, or leagued in office,  
Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,  
Thou art no soldier.  
  
DRACO: [defensively]Touch me not so near:  
I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth  
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;  
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth  
Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.  
Montano and myself being in speech,  
There comes a fellow crying out for help:  
And Cassio following him with determined sword,  
To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman  
Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause:  
Myself the crying fellow did pursue,  
Lest by his clamour--as it so fell out--  
The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot,  
Outran my purpose; and I return'd the rather  
For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,  
And Cassio high in oath; which till to-night  
I ne'er might say before. When I came back--  
For this was brief--I found them close together,  
At blow and thrust; even as again they were  
When you yourself did part them.  
More of this matter cannot I report:  
But men are men; the best sometimes forget:  
Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,  
As men in rage strike those that wish them best,  
Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received  
From him that fled some strange indignity,  
Which patience could not pass.  
  
LOCKHART: Well, except for Mr. Creevey's occasional interjections... whose  
idea was it to ungag him again?.. this has been the best scene yet, I think.  
  
HERMIONE: I suppose... but wasn't Harry supposed to be pulling his punches  
when he hit Ron?  
  
LOCKHART: Your point?  
  
DEAN: I know, Iago,  
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,  
Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee  
But never more be officer of mine.  
[Enter GINNY, followed by HERMIONE, who glares at HARRY]  
Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!  
I'll make thee an example.  
  
GINNY: [overacting sleepy] What's the matter?  
  
DEAN: All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed.  
Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon:  
Lead him off.  
[SEAMUS is picked up by CRABBE and GOYLE, one on either side, and carried  
offstage]  
Iago, look with care about the town,  
And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.  
Come, Desdemona: 'tis the soldiers' life  
To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.  
  
[Exit everyone but DRACO and HARRY. DEAN is forced to drag COLIN offstage by  
his ear]  
  
COLIN: [wailing] I don't understand! It was just pumpkin juice! What's  
going on?  
  
[HARRY flops into a sitting position on the ground, looking depressed]  
  
DRACO: What, are you hurt...lieutenant?  
  
HARRY: Ay, past all surgery.  
  
RON: [offstage] Oh, that's rich. I've got a black eye, and *he's* hurt?  
  
DRACO: Marry, heaven forbid!  
  
HARRY: Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost  
my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of  
myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,  
Iago, my reputation!  
  
DRACO: [laughs in relief] As I am an honest man, I thought you had  
received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in  
reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got  
without merit, and lost without deserving: you have lost no reputation  
at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are  
ways to recover the general again: you are but now cast in his mood, a  
punishment more in policy than in malice, even so as one would beat his  
offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion: sue to him again, and he's  
yours.  
  
HARRY: I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so  
good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so  
indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot?  
and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse  
fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible  
spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by,  
let us call thee devil!  
  
DRACO: [curiously] What was he that you followed with your sword? What  
had he done to you?  
  
HARRY: ...I know not.  
  
SEAMUS: Do *any* of us believe that?  
  
DRACO: Is't possible?  
  
COLIN: [offstage] But... but... [sounds of another scuffle, ending with  
COLIN gagged once again] Mmnf!  
  
HARRY: I remember... a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;  
a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men  
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away  
their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance  
revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!  
  
DRACO: Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus  
recovered?  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, darkly, holding two scripts] That's what I'd like to  
know....  
  
HARRY: It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place  
to the devil wrath; one unperfectness shows me  
another, to make me frankly despise myself.  
  
RON: A likely story.  
  
DRACO: Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the time,  
the place, and the condition of this country  
stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen;  
but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.  
  
RON: [theatrically] The world will now end... Draco Malfoy is lecturing  
someone on morality.  
  
HARRY: I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me  
I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra,  
such an answer would stop them all. To be now a  
sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a  
beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is  
unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.  
  
DRACO: Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature,  
if it be well used: exclaim no more against it.  
And, good lieutenant... I think you think I love you.  
  
[laughter from backstage]  
  
RON: [desperately] Hermione? Tell me that was in the script. Hermione?  
Please?  
  
HERMIONE: Honestly, Ron. Of course it was.  
  
COLIN: Mrgh! Bbthppt! Rfhgt!  
  
HARRY: ...I have... well approved it.  
  
DRACO: Now, you or any man living may be drunk! at a time, man.  
I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife  
is now the general: may say so in this respect, for  
that he hath devoted and given up himself to the  
contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and  
graces: confess yourself freely to her; importune  
her help to put you in your place again: she is of  
so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition,  
she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more  
than she is requested: this broken joint between  
you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and, my  
fortunes against any lay worth naming, this  
crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.  
  
HARRY: You advise me well.  
  
DRACO: I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.  
  
RON: [offstage, to HERMIONE] You know, you're right. He has to be a good  
actor not to choke on a line like that.  
  
HARRY: I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will  
beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me:  
I am desperate of my fortunes if they cheque me here.  
  
DRACO: You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant; I  
must to the watch.  
  
[Exit HARRY, who dodges around the backstage area to avoid RON]  
  
DRACO: And what's he then that says I play the villain?  
When this advice is free I give and honest,  
Probal to thinking and indeed the course  
To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy  
The inclining Desdemona to subdue  
In any honest suit: she's framed as fruitful  
As the free elements. And then for her  
To win the Moor--were't to renounce his baptism,  
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,  
His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,  
That she may make, unmake, do what she list,  
Even as her appetite shall play the god  
With his weak function. How am I then a villain  
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,  
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!  
When devils will the blackest sins put on,  
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,  
As I do now: for whiles this honest fool  
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes  
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,  
I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,  
That she repeals him for her body's lust;  
And by how much she strives to do him good,  
She shall undo her credit with the Moor.  
So will I turn her virtue into pitch,  
And out of her own goodness make the net  
That shall enmesh them all.  
[Enter RON, looking unhappy about not catching HARRY before he had to  
come onstage]  
How now, Roderigo!  
  
RON: I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that  
hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is  
almost spent; I have been to-night exceedingly well  
cudgelled; and I think the issue will be, I shall  
have so much experience for my pains, and so, with  
no money at all and a little more wit, return again to Venice.  
  
DRACO: How poor are they that have not patience!  
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?  
Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;  
And wit depends on dilatory time.  
Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee.  
And thou, by that small hurt, hast cashier'd Cassio:  
Though other things grow fair against the sun,  
Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe:  
Content thyself awhile. By the mass, 'tis morning;  
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.  
Retire thee; go where thou art billeted:  
Away, I say; thou shalt know more hereafter:  
Nay, get thee gone.  
  
[Exit RON, muttering]  
  
RON: What *is* this? I come onstage only to be insulted, to be a servant,  
or to have people punch me in the face.  
  
LOCKHART: [wearily] It's called acting, Mr. Weasley. You have to suffer for your craft.  
  
DRACO: Two things are to be done:  
My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress;  
I'll set her on;  
Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,  
And bring him jump when he may Cassio find  
Soliciting his wife: ay, that's the way  
Dull not device by coldness and delay.  
  
[Exit DRACO]  
  
COLIN: Mmhfgsk madfaksd lkhgh! Aaaa!  
  
HERMIONE: [taking off gag] What?  
  
COLIN: It was only pumpkin juice, Hermione. What am I missing?  
  
DRACO: [offhandedly] A brain, for one.  
  
COLIN: That wasn't nice....  
  
  
End Act II  



	4. Act III

The Play's the Thing: Act III scene i  
  
LOCKHART: Do I have to tell you where you're supposed to be, or has everyone  
read their script?  
  
[sullen muttering]  
  
LOCKHART: Wonderful. We're nearly halfway through now.  
  
[Enter HARRY, followed by COLIN, gagged, and NEVILLE, who has found a teddy  
bear somewhere and is cuddling it.]  
  
HARRY: Masters, play here; I will content your pains;  
Something that's brief; and bid 'Good morrow, general.'  
  
COLIN: Mrfgo? Sntlngtm!  
  
[Enter GOYLE, shoved onstage by CRABBE at DRACO's direction and wearing a  
stupid hat.]  
  
GOYLE: Why... masters, have your... in-stroo-ments been in... Nipples?  
that they... speak in the nose thus? [Blinks] Hey Draco, what does  
that mean?  
  
DRACO: Never mind. It's not important.  
  
NEVILLE: [hugging teddy bear tighter] Howsirhow?  
  
GOYLE: Are these... I pray you... wind in-stroo-ments?  
  
NEVILLE: Aymarryaretheysir?  
  
COLIN: Hurghk!  
  
GOYLE: O... theer-bee... hangs a... tail.  
  
COLIN: Tayghk?! Nu?  
  
NEVILLE: Wherebyhangsatalesir?  
  
GOYLE: Marry. sir, by many a... wind in-stroo-ment that I know...  
But, masters, here's... moan-ee for you... and the... jen-urr-al  
so likes... your moo-sik... that he... dez-ires you, for... love's  
sake... to make no... more... noise with it.  
  
LOCKHART: Oh God... someone make him stop....  
  
HERMIONE: He *is* trying, sir...  
  
GOYLE: [to them] 'Snot my fault. These words're all funny.  
  
NEVILLE: Wellsirwewillnot?  
  
GOYLE: If you have... any... music that may not be... heard... to't  
again but... as they say to hear... music... the jen-urr-al  
does not... greet-ly care.  
  
NEVILLE: [panicked] Wehavenonesuchsir?  
  
GOYLE: Then put... up your pipes... in your bag... for I'll away...  
go... van-ish... into air... away!  
  
[NEVILLE runs offstage, pulling COLIN along with him]  
  
COLIN: Mrg! Mrg!  
  
HARRY: Dost thou hear, my honest friend?  
  
GOYLE: No... I hear not your... honn-est... friend, I hear you.  
  
[Quickly smothered laughter from DRACO offstage]  
  
DRACO: Only when there's a script....  
  
HARRY: [glares at him] Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor  
piece of gold for thee: if the gentlewoman that attends the general's  
wife be stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her a little  
favour of speech: wilt thou do this?  
  
GOYLE: She is... stir-ring... sir: if she will stir... hither? I  
shall... seem to... not-iff-ee un-toh... her.  
  
HARRY: [hiding smile] Do, good my friend.  
  
[Exit GOYLE. Enter DRACO]  
  
HARRY: In happy time, Iago. [in an undertone] How do you put up with them?  
  
DRACO: [undertone] Practice. [louder] You have not been a-bed, then?  
  
HARRY: Why, no; the day had broke  
Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,  
To send in to your wife: my suit to her  
Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona  
Procure me some access.  
  
DRACO: I'll send her to you presently;  
And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor  
Out of the way, that your converse and business  
May be more free.  
  
HARRY: I humbly thank you for't.  
  
[Exit DRACO. HARRY watches him go]  
  
HARRY: [thoughtfully] I never knew  
A Florentine more kind and honest.  
  
[Enter HERMIONE, who curtsies. RON, offstage, gapes]  
  
RON: [in sick tones, to LOCKHART] Wait, don't tell me. Let me guess.  
Acting?  
  
LOCKHART: I assumed so.  
  
HERMIONE: Good morrow, good Lieutenant: I am sorry  
For your displeasure; but all will sure be well.  
The general and his wife are talking of it;  
And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor replies,  
That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus,  
And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdom  
He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you  
And needs no other suitor but his likings  
To take the safest occasion by the front  
To bring you in again.  
  
HARRY: Yet, I beseech you,  
If you think fit, or that it may be done,  
Give me advantage of some brief discourse  
With Desdemona alone.  
  
RON: Does *everyone* in this play want Desdemona? Ginny...?  
  
GINNY: [giggling nervously] It's just a play, Ron.  
  
HERMIONE: Pray you, come in;  
I will bestow you where you shall have time  
To speak your bosom freely.  
  
HARRY: I am much bound to you.  
  
SEAMUS: [blinks] Kinky... this Shakespeare guy had social problems, didn't  
he?  
  
[A snapping sound calls his attention to the Luggage, which has snuck up  
behind him. SEAMUS gulps]  
  
LOCKHART: You were saying, Mr. Finnegan?  
  
SEAMUS: Oh... nothing, really... nothing....  
  
End scene i  
  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene ii  
  
  
[Enter DEAN, DRACO, and NEVILLE without teddy bear]  
  
DEAN: These letters give, Iago, to the pilot;  
And by him do my duties to the senate:  
That done, I will be walking on the works;  
Repair there to me.  
  
DRACO: Well, my good lord, I'll do't.  
  
DEAN: This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?  
  
NEVILLE: W...w...w..we'llwaituponyourlordship!  
  
[NEVILLE faints]  
  
[beat]  
  
DRACO: [points at NEVILLE] Does he have to keep doing that? He's ruining  
my concentration!  
  
RON: [saccharine] Oh, poor baby. [muttering] Prima donna.  
  
[HARRY smacks RON in the back of the head]  
  
RON: OW! Hey, what was that for?  
  
HARRY: [innocently] Practicing for next rehearsal.  
  
End scene ii  
  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene iii  
  
  
[Enter GINNY, HARRY, and HERMIONE. GINNY is overacting noble, and HERMIONE is staring at the ground]  
  
GINNY: Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do  
All my abilities in thy behalf.  
  
HERMIONE: Good madam, do: I warrant it grieves my husband,  
As if the case were his.  
  
RON: [offstage, muttering] Yeah, I'll *bet* it does.  
  
DRACO: And what do you mean by that, Weasley?  
  
[RON refuses to answer]  
  
GINNY: O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,  
But I will have my lord and you again  
As friendly as you were.  
  
HARRY: Bounteous madam,  
Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,  
He's never any thing but your true servant.  
  
SEAMUS: Can she have that in writing, Harry?  
  
DEAN: Knock it off, Seamus. Ginny's not like that.  
  
SEAMUS: Dean and Ginny, sitting in a tree...  
  
DEAN: [glancing at RON and blushing] Shut up!  
  
GINNY: I know't; I thank you. You do love my lord:  
You have known him long; and be you well assured  
He shall in strangeness stand no further off  
Than in a polite distance.  
  
SEAMUS: Everybody loves everybody! What is this, an orgy?  
  
LOCKHART: Mr. Finnegan, we'll have to gag you presently if you don't keep  
your mouth shut.  
  
SEAMUS: Yeah, you and what... oh yeah. [laughs nervously] I remember.  
Forget I said anything.  
  
HARRY: Ay, but, lady,  
That policy may either last so long,  
Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,  
Or breed itself so out of circumstance,  
That, I being absent and my place supplied,  
My general will forget my love and service.  
  
RON: [under his breath] Did you hit him, too?  
  
LOCKHART: Mr. Weasley, the same goes for you as it does for Mr. Finnegan.  
  
COLIN: Mfghfth!  
  
GINNY: Do not doubt that; before Emilia here  
I give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee,  
If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it  
To the last article: my lord shall never rest;  
I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;  
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;  
I'll intermingle every thing he does  
With Cassio's suit: therefore be merry, Cassio;  
For thy solicitor shall rather die  
Than give thy cause away.  
  
HERMIONE: Madam, here comes my lord.  
  
HARRY: [uncomfortably] Madam, I'll take my leave.  
  
GINNY: Why, stay, and hear me speak.  
  
HARRY: Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease,  
Unfit for mine own purposes.  
  
GINNY: [overly doubtful] Well, do your discretion.  
  
[HARRY beats a quick retreat offstage as DEAN and DRACO enter]  
  
DRACO: Ha! I like not that.  
  
HARRY: [under his breath] Liar.  
  
DEAN: What dost thou say?  
  
DRACO: Nothing, my lord: or if... [watches HARRY go] I know not what.  
  
DEAN: [suspiciously] Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?  
  
DRACO: [too innocent] Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,  
That he would steal away so guilty-like,  
Seeing you coming.  
  
DEAN: I do believe 'twas he.  
  
GINNY: How now, my lord!  
I have been talking with a suitor here,  
A man that languishes in your displeasure.  
  
DEAN: Who is't you mean?  
  
GINNY: Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,  
If I have any grace or power to move you,  
His present reconciliation take;  
For if he be not one that truly loves you,  
That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,  
I have no judgment in an honest face:  
I prithee, call him back.  
  
DEAN: Went he hence now?  
  
GINNY: Ay, sooth; so humbled  
That he hath left part of his grief with me,  
To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.  
  
DEAN: Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.  
  
GINNY: But shall't be shortly?  
  
DEAN: The sooner, sweet, for you.  
  
GINNY: Shall't be to-night at supper?  
  
DEAN: [annoyed] No, not to-night.  
  
GINNY: To-morrow dinner, then?  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] God, she never *stops*, does she? Dean, you're *dating*  
her?  
  
[DEAN goes red and makes discreet shushing gestures]  
  
RON: WHAT?!  
  
DEAN: [quickly] I shall not dine at home;  
I meet the captains at the citadel.  
  
GINNY: Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn;  
On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn:  
I prithee, name the time, but let it not  
Exceed three days: in faith, he's penitent;  
And yet his trespass, in our common reason--  
Save that, they say, the wars must make examples  
Out of their best--is not almost a fault  
To incur a private cheque. When shall he come?  
Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul,  
What you would ask me, that I should deny,  
Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael Cassio,  
That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,  
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,  
Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do  
To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,--  
  
DEAN: Prithee, no more: let him come when he will;  
I will deny thee nothing.  
  
GINNY: Why, this is not a boon;  
'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,  
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,  
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit  
To your own person: nay, when I have a suit  
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,  
It shall be full of poise and difficult weight  
And fearful to be granted.  
  
RON: Suure. The guy gets drunk, beats up his best friend and another  
friend, and it's not a favor to take him back?  
  
HARRY: That's theatre, Ron. Calm down already.  
  
DEAN: I will deny thee nothing:  
Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,  
To leave me but a little to myself.  
  
GINNY: Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord.  
  
DEAN: Farewell, my Desdemona: I'll come to thee straight.  
  
GINNY: [smiles] Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;  
Whate'er you be, I am obedient.  
  
[Exit GINNY and HERMIONE]  
  
DEAN: Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,  
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,  
Chaos is come again.  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage to GINNY, smugly] Boy, he blows hot and cold, doesn't he?  
  
HARRY: [offstage, to RON] I get the feeling I'm missing something here...  
  
RON: Don't look at me!  
  
DRACO: My noble lord--  
  
DEAN: What dost thou say, Iago?  
  
DRACO: [slowly] Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,  
Know of your love?  
  
DEAN: He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?  
  
DRACO: [waves dismissively] But for a satisfaction of my thought;  
No further harm.  
  
DEAN: Why of thy thought, Iago?  
  
DRACO: I...did not think he had been acquainted with her.  
  
DEAN: O, yes; and went between us very oft.  
  
DRACO: Indeed!  
  
RON: [offstage, needling] Why? Jealous?  
  
[HARRY smacks RON upside the head]  
  
RON: Hey! What was that f-  
  
[HARRY stares back, sphinx-like]  
  
RON: Let me guess. Practicing for next rehearsal?  
  
LOCKHART: I like to see that kind of dedication to a role.  
  
RON: [muttering to himself] Dedication, nothing....  
  
DEAN: Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in that?  
Is he not honest?  
  
DRACO: [blinks] ...Honest, my lord?  
  
DEAN: Honest! ay, honest.  
  
DRACO: My lord, for aught I know.  
  
DEAN: What dost thou think?  
  
DRACO: ...Think, my lord?  
  
SEAMUS: [sarcastically] Way to dodge the question, Malfoy! It's not obvious  
at all what you're up to!  
  
RON: [to HARRY] How come you don't hit him?  
  
HARRY: [aloof] I wasn't hitting you for fun, Ron, I was just practicing.  
  
DEAN: Think, my lord!  
By heaven, he echoes me,  
As if there were some monster in his thought  
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:  
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,  
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?  
And when I told thee he was of my counsel  
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst 'Indeed!'  
And didst contract and purse thy brow together,  
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain  
Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,  
Show me thy thought.  
  
DRACO: My lord, you know I love you.  
  
SEAMUS: There it is again! Any minute now, McGonagall's gonna burst in and  
give us all detention for performing a lewd play!  
  
LOCKHART: [mildly] *Professor* McGonagall to you, Mr. Finnegan.  
  
DEAN: I think thou dost;  
And, for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty,  
And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,  
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more:  
For such things in a false disloyal knave  
Are tricks of custom, but in a man that's just  
They are close delations, working from the heart  
That passion cannot rule.  
  
DRACO: For Michael Cassio,  
I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.  
  
DEAN: I think so too.  
  
DRACO: [wistfully] Men should be what they seem;  
Or those that be not, would they might seem none!  
  
DEAN: Certain, men should be what they seem.  
  
DRACO: [Triumphantly] Why, then, I think Cassio's an honest man.  
  
DEAN: Nay, yet there's more in this:  
I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,  
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts  
The worst of words.  
  
RON: [offstage] Like that's really hard for him. Come on!  
  
[RON dodges a nonexistent effort to smack him upside the head, then looks  
confused. HARRY is busy watching the scene]  
  
DRACO: [bows head to hide slight smile] Good my lord, pardon me:  
Though I am bound to every act of duty,  
I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.  
Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;  
As where's that palace whereinto foul things  
Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so pure,  
But some uncleanly apprehensions  
Keep leets and law-days and in session sit  
With meditations lawful?  
  
DEAN: Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,  
If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear  
A stranger to thy thoughts.  
  
DRACO: I do beseech you--  
Though I perchance am... vicious in my guess,  
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague  
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy  
Shapes faults that are not--that your wisdom yet,  
From one that so imperfectly conceits,  
Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble  
Out of his scattering and unsure observance.  
It were not for your quiet nor your good,  
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,  
To let you know my thoughts.  
  
DEAN: What dost thou mean?  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Yes, what?  
  
DRACO: Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,  
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:  
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;  
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:  
But he that filches from me my good name  
Robs me of that which not enriches him  
And makes me poor indeed.  
  
RON: [offstage, to HERMIONE] Hang on... a few scenes back, didn't he tell  
Cassio that reputation and good name weren't worth anything?  
  
HERMIONE: Of course he did! He's the *villain*!  
  
DEAN: By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts!  
  
DRACO: [shakes his head] You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;  
Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.  
  
DEAN: Ha!  
  
DRACO: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;  
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock  
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss  
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;  
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er  
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!  
  
DEAN: O misery!  
  
DRACO: [piously] Poor and content is rich and rich enough,  
But riches fineless is as poor as winter  
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.  
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend  
From jealousy!  
  
DEAN: Why, why is this?  
Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,  
To follow still the changes of the moon  
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt  
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,  
When I shall turn the business of my soul  
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,  
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous  
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,  
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;  
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:  
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw  
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;  
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;  
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;  
And on the proof, there is no more but this,--  
Away at once with love or jealousy!  
  
SEAMUS: Milk and cookies for everyone!  
  
DRACO: I am glad of it; for now I shall have reason  
To show the love and duty that I bear you  
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,  
Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.  
Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;  
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure:  
I would not have your free and noble nature,  
Out of self-bounty, be abused; look to't:  
I know our country disposition well;  
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks  
They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience  
Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.  
  
DEAN: Dost thou say so?  
  
SEAMUS: No, you're hearing things again.  
  
DRACO: She *did* deceive her father, marrying you;  
And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,  
She loved them most.  
  
DEAN: And so she did.  
  
DRACO: Why, go to then;  
She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,  
To seal her father's eyes up close as oak-  
He thought 'twas witchcraft--but I am much to blame;  
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon  
For too much loving you.  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] Uh-huh. Suuure you do.  
  
DEAN: I am bound to thee for ever.  
  
SEAMUS: Again with the bondage!  
  
[There is a brief scuffle, after which HARRY and HERMIONE have managed to gag  
SEAMUS]  
  
DRACO: [smirking slightly] I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.  
  
DEAN: Not a jot, not a jot.  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Liar.  
  
DRACO: I' faith, I fear it has.  
I hope you will consider what is spoke  
Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved:  
I am to pray you not to strain my speech  
To grosser issues nor to larger reach  
Than to suspicion.  
  
DEAN: No, not much moved:  
I do not think but Desdemona's honest.  
  
HERMIONE: [offstage, singsong] Come into my parlor, said the spider to the  
fly....  
  
GINNY: [sighing] Isn't he sweet?  
  
HERMIONE: [shrugs] We'll see if you're saying that later, *Desdemona*.  
  
DRACO: Long live she so! and long live you to think so!  
  
DEAN: And yet, how nature erring from itself,--  
  
DRACO: Ay, there's the point: as--to be bold with you--  
Not to affect many proposed matches  
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,  
Whereto we see in all things nature tends--  
Feh! one may smell in such a will most rank,  
Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.  
But pardon me; I do not in position  
Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear  
Her will, recoiling to her better judgment,  
May fall to match you with her country forms  
And happily repent.  
  
SEAMUS: Huh?  
  
RON: I don't know either.  
  
CRABBE: Look, I drew a bunny.  
  
DEAN: Farewell, farewell:  
If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;  
Set on thy wife to observe: leave me, Iago...  
  
DRACO: [turning to leave] My lord, I take my leave.  
  
DEAN: Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless  
Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.  
  
SEAMUS: Keep going, you're almost there... you gonna let that snake play you  
for a sucker?  
  
DRACO: [turning back] My lord, I would I might entreat your honour  
To scan this thing no further; leave it to time:  
Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,  
For sure, he fills it up with great ability,  
Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,  
You shall by that perceive him and his means:  
Note, if your lady strain his entertainment  
With any strong or vehement importunity;  
Much will be seen in that. In the mean time,  
Let me be thought too busy in my fears--  
As worthy cause I have to fear I am--  
And hold her free, I do beseech your honour.  
  
DEAN: Fear not my government.  
  
HARRY: [offstage, smiling, to SEAMUS] Guess so.  
  
DRACO: I once more take my leave.  
  
[Exit DRACO. He goes over to stand next to HARRY. CRABBE wanders over to  
try and show him the new drawing. DRACO glares at him, and he backs off]  
  
DEAN: [thoughtfully] This fellow's of exceeding honesty,  
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,  
Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,  
Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,  
I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind,  
To pray at fortune. Haply, for I am black  
And have not those soft parts of conversation  
That chamberers have, or for I am declined  
Into the vale of years,--yet that's not much--  
She's gone. I am abused; and my relief  
Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,  
That we can call these delicate creatures ours,  
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,  
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,  
Than keep a corner in the thing I love  
For others' uses. Yet, 'tis the plague of great ones;  
Prerogatived are they less than the base;  
'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death:  
Even then this forked plague is fated to us  
When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:  
[Enter GINNY and HERMIONE. GINNY has discovered a filmy pink scarf  
somewhere and is wearing it so that it flutters behind her dramatically]  
If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!  
I'll not believe't.  
  
GINNY: How now, my dear Othello!  
Your dinner, and the generous islanders  
By you invited, do attend your presence.  
  
DEAN: [whispering] I am to blame.  
  
GINNY: Why do you speak so faintly?  
Are you not well?  
  
DEAN: [touches his head] I have a pain upon my forehead here.  
  
GINNY: 'Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again:  
Let me but bind it hard, within this hour  
It will be well.  
  
SEAMUS: Riiiight. Bandages do SO much for headaches, don't they?  
  
[GINNY removes the scarf and attempts to tie it around DEAN's head  
Rambo-style]  
  
DEAN: [takes the scarf from GINNY and drops it on the ground]  
Your napkin is too little:  
Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.  
  
GINNY: [contrite] I am very sorry you are not well.  
  
HERMIONE: [picks up the scarf and holds it arm's length]  
I am glad I have found this napkin:  
This was her first remembrance from the Moor:  
My wayward husband hath a hundred times  
Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,  
For he conjured her she should ever keep it,  
That she reserves it evermore about her  
To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,  
And give't Iago: what he will do with it  
Heaven knows, not I;  
I nothing but to please his fantasy.  
  
[Reenter DRACO]  
  
DRACO: [suspicious] How now! what do you here alone?  
  
HERMIONE: [snappishly] Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.  
  
DRACO: A thing for me? It is a common thing-  
  
HERMIONE: Ha!  
  
DRACO: [smiling] To have a foolish wife.  
  
HERMIONE: [teasing] O, is that all? What will you give me now  
For the same handkerchief?  
  
DRACO: [puzzled] What handkerchief?  
  
HERMIONE: What handkerchief?  
Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona;  
That which so often you did bid me steal.  
  
DRACO: Hast stol'n it from her?  
  
HERMIONE: No, 'faith; she let it drop by negligence.  
And, to the advantage, I, being here, took't up.  
Look, here it is.  
  
[HERMIONE produces the scarf and dangles it in front of DRACO playfully]  
  
DRACO: [impressed] A good wench; give it me.  
  
HERMIONE: What will you do with 't, that you have been so earnest  
To have me filch it?  
  
DRACO: [snatching it] Why, what's that to you?  
  
HERMIONE: If it be not for some purpose of import,  
Give't me again: poor lady, she'll run mad  
When she shall lack it.  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage. DEAN has ungagged him.] News flash! That's just what  
he wants!  
  
DRACO: Be not acknown on 't; I have use for it.  
Go, leave me.  
[Exit HERMIONE]  
I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,  
And let him find it. Trifles light as air  
Are to the jealous confirmations strong  
As proofs of holy writ: this may do something.  
The Moor already changes with my poison:  
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons.  
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,  
But with a little act upon the blood.  
Burn like the mines of Sulphur. I did say so:  
Look, where he comes!  
  
[Reenter DEAN, shoving what was until lately SEAMUS's gag into the pocket of  
his robes]  
  
DRACO: [to himself] Not poppy, nor mandragora,  
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,  
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep  
Which thou owedst yesterday.  
  
DEAN: Ha! ha! false to me?  
  
DRACO: [startled] Why, how now, general! no more of that.  
  
DEAN: Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack:  
I swear 'tis better to be much abused  
Than but to know't a little.  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] And that's the honest truth.  
  
DRACO: How now, my lord!  
  
DEAN: What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?  
I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me:  
I slept the next night well, was free and merry;  
I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips:  
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,  
Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.  
  
DRACO: I am sorry to hear this.  
  
DEAN: I had been happy, if the general camp,  
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,  
So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever  
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!  
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,  
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!  
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,  
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,  
The royal banner, and all quality,  
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!  
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats  
The immortal Jove's dead clamours counterfeit,  
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!  
  
SEAMUS: Whoa! Overreact much?  
  
DRACO: Is't possible, my lord?  
  
DEAN: Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,  
Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof:  
Or by the worth of man's eternal soul,  
Thou hadst been better have been born a dog  
Than answer my waked wrath!  
  
DRACO: [sadly] Is't come to this?  
  
DEAN: Make me to see't; or, at the least, so prove it,  
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop  
To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!  
  
DRACO: My noble lord,-  
  
DEAN: [angrily] If thou dost slander her and torture me,  
Never pray more; abandon all remorse;  
On horror's head horrors accumulate;  
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;  
For nothing canst thou to damnation add  
Greater than that.  
  
SEAMUS: Yeah, Iago colors outside the lines, all right.  
  
DRACO: [backing away, hands up defensively]  
O grace! O heaven forgive me!  
Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?  
God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool.  
That livest to make thine honesty a vice!  
O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,  
To be direct and honest is not safe.  
I thank you for this profit; and from hence  
I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.  
  
DEAN: Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest.  
  
DRACO: [Shakes his head] I should be wise, for honesty's a fool  
And loses that it works for.  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Does it really?  
  
DEAN: By the world,  
I think my wife be honest and think she is not;  
I think that thou art just and think thou art not.  
I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh  
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black  
As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives,  
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,  
I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!  
  
DRACO: [regretfully] I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:  
I do repent me that I put it to you.  
You would be satisfied?  
  
DEAN: Would! nay, I will.  
  
DRACO: [slowly] And may: but, how? how satisfied, my lord?  
Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on--  
Behold her topp'd?  
  
DEAN: Death and damnation! O!  
  
RON: [nastily] Oops. He'll go for you throat now, Iago. Talk your way out  
of that one!  
  
DRACO: It were a tedious difficulty, I think,  
To bring them to that prospect: damn them then,  
If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster  
More than their own! What then? how then?  
What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?  
It is impossible you should see this,  
Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,  
As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross  
As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,  
If imputation and strong circumstances,  
Which lead directly to the door of truth,  
Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.  
  
HARRY: [offstage, amused] Like that, Ron?  
  
DEAN: Give me a living reason she's disloyal.  
  
[HARRY thumbs through his script to find out where they are, then blushes  
bright red]  
  
RON: What? What's up?  
  
DRACO: I do not like the office:  
But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,  
Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,  
I will go on.  
  
[He takes a deep breath, and fights back a smile before continuing. HARRY  
gets redder.]  
  
DRACO: I lay with Cassio lately;  
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,  
I could not sleep.  
There are a kind of men so loose of soul,  
That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs:  
One of this kind is Cassio:  
In sleep I heard him say 'Sweet Desdemona,  
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;'  
And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,  
Cry 'O sweet creature!' and then kiss me hard,  
As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots  
That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg  
Over my thigh, and sigh'd, and kiss'd; and then  
Cried 'Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!'  
  
DEAN: O monstrous! monstrous!  
  
SEAMUS: I second!  
  
RON: DAMN STRAIGHT!  
  
HARRY: [weakly] Why does the floor never open up and swallow you when you  
want it to?  
  
RON: If he wasn't onstage I'd...  
  
GINNY: [marveling, ignoring the boys] Wow, he said it without hitching at  
*all*....  
  
HERMIONE: [dryly] I think we all noticed that.  
  
DRACO: Nay, this was but his dream.  
  
RON: You're not getting out of this one, Malfoy...  
  
[HARRY smacks him upside the head]  
  
HARRY: It's a *play*, Ron. We're *acting*.  
  
RON: [muttering] Why're you blushing then?  
  
HARRY: I'm not.  
  
RON: You are.  
  
LOCKHART: Do I have to separate you two?  
  
HERMIONE: They're doing rather well on their own, I think.  
  
DEAN: But this denoted a foregone conclusion:  
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.  
  
DRACO: And this may help to thicken other proofs  
That do demonstrate thinly.  
  
DEAN: [darkly] I'll tear her all to pieces.  
  
SEAMUS: Awww, how sweet. This is the stuff picture books are made of.  
  
DRACO: Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done;  
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this,  
Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief  
Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?  
  
DEAN: I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.  
  
GINNY: So that's what he wanted with the scarf...  
  
DRACO: I know not that; but such a handkerchief--  
I am sure it was your wife's--did I to-day  
See Cassio wipe his beard with.  
  
COLIN: Hrghr biruh!  
  
HERMIONE: [removing gag] What?  
  
COLIN: Harry doesn't *have* a beard...  
  
HERMIONE: You are hopeless. [replaces gag]  
  
DEAN: If it be that...  
  
DRACO: [quickly] If it be that... or any that was hers...  
It speaks against her with the other proofs.  
  
RON: What proofs?  
  
DEAN: O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!  
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.  
Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago;  
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.  
'Tis gone.  
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!  
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne  
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,  
For 'tis of aspics' tongues!  
  
DRACO: Yet be content....  
  
SEAMUS: Because *he* certainly is....  
  
DEAN: O, blood, blood, blood!  
  
NEVILLE: [offstage] Where?! [faints]  
  
DRACO: Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.  
  
DEAN: Never, Iago: Like to the Pontic sea,  
Whose icy current and compulsive course  
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on  
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,  
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,  
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,  
Till that a capable and wide revenge  
Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,  
[he kneels]  
In the due reverence of a sacred vow  
I here engage my words.  
  
RON: It's easy to play with this guy Othello's head, isn't it?  
  
DRACO: Do not rise yet.  
  
SEAMUS: I knew it! I knew it! Should we be watching this, Prof... Mr.  
Lockhart?  
  
LOCKHART: You have a dirty mind, Mr. Finnegan. In other plays I'd encourage  
it, but not in this one. Shut up.  
  
[DRACO kneels next to DEAN]  
  
DRACO: Witness, you ever-burning lights above,  
You elements that clip us round about,  
Witness that here Iago doth give up  
The execution of his wit, hands, heart,  
To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,  
And to obey shall be in me remorse,  
What bloody business ever.  
  
[Both boys rise to their feet]  
  
DEAN: I greet thy love,  
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,  
And will upon the instant put thee to't:  
Within these three days let me hear thee say  
That Cassio's not alive.  
  
RON: [offstage, confused] 'If you love me, you'll kill him?' Is that what  
he just said?  
  
HARRY: Something like that.  
  
DRACO: [bowing his head] My friend is dead; 'tis done at your request:  
But let her live.  
  
DEAN: Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!  
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,  
To furnish me with some swift means of death  
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.  
  
DRACO: I am your own for ever.  
  
RON: [disbelieving] He got promoted? He convinces the guy to kill his wife  
and second-in-command and he gets *promoted* for it?  
  
DRACO: What can I say, Weasley? People recognize talent.  
  
RON: [muttering] This is *messed up*.  
  
  
End scene iii  
  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene iv  
  
  
[Enter GINNY, HERMIONE, and GOYLE, still wearing the stupid hat]  
  
GINNY: [to GOYLE] Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?  
  
GOYLE: I dare not say he... lies any... where.  
  
GINNY: Why, man?  
  
GOYLE: He's a... sold-ier.... and for one to say a... sold-ier lies,  
is... stabbing.  
  
CRABBE: [offstage, to DRACO] Cassio's Potter, right?  
  
DRACO: [shortly] Yes.  
  
CRABBE: So why's Greg afraid of him?  
  
DRACO: [in no mood to explain drama to one-half of the Thicky Twins] Because  
he's a homicidal maniac.  
  
GINNY: [ignoring the offstage conversation] Go to: where lodges he?  
  
CRABBE: My mum told me to stand up to homicidal maniacs.  
  
DRACO: Yes, well, this would be the mum that declared with total conviction  
that you were a brilliant and handsome stallion of a man. I think her opinions  
are somewhat suspect.  
  
CRABBE: [grinning] I love my mum.  
  
DRACO: And I love chocolate, but I don't ask its advice, do I?  
  
GOYLE: To tell you where he... lodges, is to tell you... where I lie.  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Is it my imagination, or is he getting better?  
  
GINNY: Can any thing be made of this?  
  
GOYLE: I know not... where he... lodges, and for me to... devise a...  
lodging and say he... lies here or he lies... there, were  
to lie in... mine own throat.  
  
GINNY: Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report?  
  
GOYLE: I will... cat-a-ch-eyes... the world for him... that is make...  
questions, and by them... ants were.  
  
GINNY: Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him I have  
moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all will be well.  
  
GOYLE: To do this is... within the... compass of man's... wit and...  
there-fore... I will attempt the... doing it.  
  
[GOYLE wanders offstage]  
  
GINNY: Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?  
  
SEAMUS: You didn't lose it, remember? You dropped it when you tried to  
bandage a headache, you...  
  
HERMIONE: I know not, madam.  
  
DEAN: Liar! She's a liar!  
  
GINNY: Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse  
Full of crusadoes: and, but my noble Moor  
Is true of mind and made of no such baseness  
As jealous creatures are, it were enough  
To put him to ill thinking.  
  
HERMIONE: Is he not jealous?  
  
SEAMUS: Well, let's just consider that question....  
  
GINNY: Who, he? I think the sun where he was born  
Drew all such humours from him.  
  
SEAMUS: Nice answer... but you're WRONG!  
  
HERMIONE: Look, where he comes.  
  
[Enter DEAN. His script is now sporting a bunny and something that could be  
a teddy bear]  
  
GINNY: [undertone, to HERMIONE] I will not leave him now till Cassio  
Be call'd to him.  
[louder, to DEAN]  
How is't with you, my lord?  
  
DEAN: Well, my good lady.  
[Aside]  
O, hardness to dissemble!--  
How do you, Desdemona?  
  
SEAMUS: ...Just to prove my mind isn't always in the gutter, I'm not gonna  
say anything about that.  
  
GINNY: Well, my good lord.  
  
DEAN: Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.  
  
SEAMUS: [sarcastically] Ooh, the telling blow! She washed her hands! She  
*never* did that in Venice...  
  
GINNY: It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.  
  
DRACO: Well, not yet, anyway.  
  
DEAN: This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart:  
Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires  
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,  
Much castigation, exercise devout;  
For here's a young and sweating devil here,  
That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,  
A frank one.  
  
SEAMUS: Wow, you got all that from her hand?  
  
GINNY: You may, indeed, say so;  
For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.  
  
DEAN: A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;  
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.  
  
SEAMUS: Are they even talking about the same thing?  
  
CRABBE: [who has SEAMUS's script] ...Can't draw puppies....  
  
GINNY: I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.  
  
DEAN: What promise, chuck?  
  
DRACO: Now *there's* a nickname to set a girl's heart aflutter...  
  
HARRY: It's better than some, isn't it?  
  
GINNY: I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.  
  
DEAN: I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;  
Lend me thy handkerchief.  
  
SEAMUS: Smooooth, Dean. Now sneeze on her.  
  
GINNY: Here, my lord. [She mimes handing him a handkerchief]  
  
DEAN: That which I gave you.  
  
HARRY: Yeah, he wants the scarf.  
  
DRACO: [snickering] Well, sometimes soldiers just want to feel pretty.  
  
GINNY: I have it not about me.  
  
DEAN: Not?  
  
GINNY: No, indeed, my lord.  
  
DEAN: That is a fault.  
That handkerchief  
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;  
She was a charmer, and could almost read  
The thoughts of people: she told her, while  
she kept it,  
'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father  
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it  
Or made gift of it, my father's eye  
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt  
After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;  
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,  
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;  
Make it a darling like your precious eye;  
To lose't or give't away were such perdition  
As nothing else could match.  
  
DRACO: [reading ahead. He raises one eyebrow, impressed] You're not wrong.  
  
GINNY: Indeed! is't true?  
  
DEAN: Most veritable; therefore look to't well.  
  
GINNY: Then would to God I had never seen't!  
  
DEAN: Ha! wherefore?  
  
GINNY: Why do you speak so startingly and rash?  
  
DEAN: Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o'the way?  
  
GINNY: Heaven bless us!  
  
DEAN: Say you?  
  
SEAMUS: You!  
  
GINNY: It is not lost, but what an if it were?  
  
SEAMUS: Wrong answer!  
  
DEAN: How!  
  
SEAMUS: How!  
  
GINNY: I say, it is not lost.  
  
DEAN: Fetch't, let me see't.  
  
GINNY: Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.  
This is a trick to put me from my suit:  
Pray you, let Cassio be received again.  
  
DEAN: Fetch me the handkerchief, my mind misgives.  
  
GINNY: Come, come;  
You'll never meet a more sufficient man.  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Now I *know* they're not talking about the same thing.  
  
DEAN: The handkerchief!  
  
GINNY: I pray, talk me of Cassio.  
  
DEAN: The handkerchief!  
  
GINNY: A man that all his time  
Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,  
Shared dangers with you,--  
  
DEAN: The handkerchief!  
  
SEAMUS: The handkerchief!  
  
HARRY: Echo!  
  
GINNY: In sooth, you are to blame.  
  
DEAN: Away!  
  
SEAMUS: The handkerchief!  
  
[DEAN stomps offstage]  
  
HERMIONE: Is not this man jealous?  
  
GINNY: I ne'er saw this before.  
Sure, there's some wonder in this handkerchief:  
I am most unhappy in the loss of it.  
  
HERMIONE: [consolingly] 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:  
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;  
To eat us hungerly, and when they are full,  
They belch us. Look you, Cassio and my husband!  
  
[Enter DRACO and HARRY, walking together]  
  
DRACO: There is no other way; 'tis she must do't:  
And, lo, the happiness! go, and importune her.  
  
GINNY: How now, good Cassio! what's the news with you?  
  
HARRY: [bowing] Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you  
That by your virtuous means I may again  
Exist, and be a member of his love  
Whom I with all the office of my heart  
Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd.  
If my offence be of such mortal kind  
That nor my service past, nor present sorrows,  
Nor purposed merit in futurity,  
Can ransom me into his love again,  
But to know so must be my benefit;  
So shall I clothe me in a forced content,  
And shut myself up in some other course,  
To fortune's alms.  
  
SEAMUS: I prefer cotton, myself....  
  
GINNY: Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!  
My advocation is not now in tune;  
My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,  
Were he in favour as in humour alter'd.  
So help me every spirit sanctified,  
As I have spoken for you all my best  
And stood within the blank of his displeasure  
For my free speech! you must awhile be patient:  
What I can do I will; and more I will  
Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you.  
  
DRACO: Is my lord angry?  
  
SEAMUS: Sure, act like you don't know. Can't anyone else see thorugh this  
guy?  
  
HERMIONE: He went hence but now,  
And certainly in strange unquietness.  
  
CRABBE: [offstage] Here. It doesn't look much like a puppy.  
  
NEVILLE: [hesitantly] Ummm... thanks....  
  
DRACO: Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,  
When it hath blown his ranks into the air,  
And, like the devil, from his very arm  
Puff'd his own brother:--and can he be angry?  
Something of moment then: I will go meet him:  
There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry.  
  
GINNY: [gratefully] I prithee, do so.  
  
SEAMUS: Oh sure. Give him an inch and he'll hang you with it.  
  
[Exit DRACO]  
  
GINNY: Something, sure, of state,  
Either from Venice, or some unhatch'd practise  
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,  
Hath puddled his clear spirit: and in such cases  
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,  
Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;  
For let our finger ache, and it indues  
Our other healthful members even to that sense  
Of pain: nay, we must think men are not gods,  
Nor of them look for such observances  
As fit the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,  
I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,  
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;  
But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,  
And he's indicted falsely.  
  
SEAMUS: Nice thought... but you're WRONG!  
  
HERMIONE: Pray heaven it be state-matters, as you think,  
And no conception nor no jealous toy  
Concerning you.  
  
GINNY: Alas the day! I never gave him cause.  
  
DEAN: That's what *you* think.  
  
HERMIONE: But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;  
They are not ever jealous for the cause,  
But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster  
Begot upon itself, born on itself.  
  
GINNY: Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!  
  
HARRY: [muttering] Too late.  
  
HERMIONE: [kicks HARRY in the shins, discreetly] Lady, amen.  
  
GINNY: I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout:  
If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit  
And seek to effect it to my uttermost.  
  
HARRY: [bows] I humbly thank your ladyship..  
  
[GINNY sweeps dramatically offstage, followed by HERMIONE. Enter PANSY]  
  
PANSY: [in an irritating simpering half-whine] Save you, friend Cassio!  
  
HARRY: [wincing] What make you from home?  
How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?  
I' faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.  
  
RON: Now *that* is acting.  
  
PANSY: [still in the irritating simpering half-whine]  
And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.  
What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?  
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,  
More tedious than the dial eight score times?  
O weary reckoning!  
  
HARRY: Pardon me, Bianca:  
I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd:  
But I shall, in a more continuate time,  
Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,  
[hands her teh filmy pink scarf]  
Take me this work out.  
  
PANSY: [whining irritatingly and simpering] O Cassio, whence came this?  
This is some token from a newer friend:  
To the felt absence now I feel a cause:  
Is't come to this? Well, well.  
  
SEAMUS: That's... not her *normal* voice, is it?  
  
DRACO: ...I'm afraid it is.  
  
HARRY: Go to, woman!  
Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,  
From whence you have them. You are jealous now  
That this is from some mistress, some remembrance:  
No, in good troth, Bianca.  
  
PANSY: Why, whose is it?  
  
HARRY: I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber.  
I like the work well: ere it be demanded--  
As like enough it will--I'ld have it copied:  
Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.  
  
PANSY: Leave you! wherefore?  
  
HARRY: I do attend here on the general;  
And think it no addition, nor my wish,  
To have him see me woman'd.  
  
PANSY: Why, I pray you?  
  
SEAMUS: He can't take your *voice* any more, Pansy! Do you need a sign or  
something?  
  
HARRY: Not that I love you not.  
  
DRACO: Even though that's the case...  
  
PANSY: But that you do not love me.  
I pray you, bring me on the way a little,  
And say if I shall see you soon at night.  
  
HARRY: 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you;  
For I attend here: but I'll see you soon.  
  
PANSY: 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.  
  
[Exit HARRY and PANSY. PANSY keeps the scarf in her hands, but as she passes  
by, DRACO takes it away. She doesn't notice. DRACO hands the scarf to HARRY]  
  
DRACO: Here. She'd only lose it.  
  
HARRY: Thanks... [tosses it around his neck playfully] There. What do you  
think?  
  
DRACO: Pink isn't your color.  
  
RON: I'm going to be sick....  
  
End Act III  
  



	5. Act IV

The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene i  
  
[Enter DEAN and DRACO. DEAN paces around the stage like a gazelle on steroids,  
never staying still for more than a few seconds.]  
  
DRACO: Will you think so?  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] Hey! Think what? Did I miss something in between scenes?  
How'd we get here?  
  
LOCKHART: The magic of theatre, Mr. Finnegan. Now shut up.  
  
DEAN: Think so, Iago!  
  
COLIN: [offstage] Think what?  
  
DRACO: What,  
To kiss in private?  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage, knowingly, to GINNY] That's the only way. McGonagall'd  
stick us in detention for a week for doing it in public.  
  
DEAN: An unauthorized kiss.  
  
DRACO: Or to be naked with her friend in bed  
An hour or more, not meaning any harm?  
  
SEAMUS: That would be a waste of a perfectly good hour is what it would be.  
  
DEAN: Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!  
It is hypocrisy against the devil:  
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,  
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.  
  
DRACO: So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip:  
But if I give my wife a handkerchief,--  
  
DEAN: What then?  
  
DRACO: Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers,  
She may, I think, bestow't on any man.  
  
HERMIONE: Good answer.  
  
DEAN: She is protectress of her honour too:  
May she give that?  
  
DRACO: Her honour is an essence that's not seen;  
They have it very oft that have it not:  
But, for the handkerchief,--  
  
DEAN: By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.  
Thou said'st, it comes o'er my memory,  
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,  
Boding to all--he had my handkerchief.  
  
SEAMUS: Is it just me, or is Othello making less and less sense?  
  
DRACO: Ay, what of that?  
  
DEAN: That's not so good now.  
  
HARRY: [imitating DEAN] In fact, I'll even go so far as to say I'm displeased.  
Yes. Definitely miffed.  
  
DRACO: What,  
If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?  
Or heard him say,--as knaves be such abroad,  
Who having, by their own importunate suit,  
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,  
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose  
But they must blab--  
  
HERMIONE: Oh, you're just being provocative now.  
  
GOYLE: Huh?  
  
HERMIONE: Basically, he just said, "Well, what if I told you he said your  
mother dressed you funny?"  
  
GOYLE: [impressed] Wow. You're smart.  
  
DEAN: Hath he said any thing?  
  
GOYLE: [helpfully] Your mum dresses you funny.  
  
DRACO: He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,  
No more than he'll unswear.  
  
DEAN: What hath he said?  
  
DRACO: 'Faith, that he did--I know not what he did.  
  
HARRY: A little shaky on the dismount there, Iago.  
  
DEAN: What? what?  
  
DRACO: Lie--  
  
DEAN: With her?  
  
DRACO: With her, on her; what you will.  
  
SEAMUS: Ooh, now we're getting somewhere! Do we get details?  
  
DEAN: Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when  
they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.  
--Handkerchief--confessions--handkerchief!--To  
confess, and be hanged for his labour;--first, to be  
hanged, and then to confess.--I tremble at it.  
Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing  
passion without some instruction. It is not words  
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.  
--Is't possible?--Confess--handkerchief!--O devil!--  
  
[DEAN looks at his script, then shrugs and sits on the ground crosslegged and  
shuts his eyes.]  
  
DEAN: Ommmmm...  
  
LOCKHART: Mr. Thomas, what exactly are you doing? In no instance does this  
script call for transcendental meditation.  
  
DEAN: I'm in a trance.  
  
HERMIONE: Dean, that means an epileptic fit.  
  
DEAN: Oh. [He immediately collapses over onto his side and starts flopping  
around like a landed fish]  
  
DRACO: Work on,  
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;  
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,  
All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! my lord!  
My lord, I say! Othello!  
[Enter HARRY. DEAN's flopping around causes him to fall off the stage]  
How now, Cassio!  
  
HARRY: What's the matter?  
  
DRACO: My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy:  
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.  
  
[from in front of the stage come muffled sounds of pain]  
  
HARRY: Rub him about the temples.  
  
SEAMUS: [runs over to where DEAN is lying] Oh, sure, Harry. That's really  
going to help.  
  
DRACO: No, forbear;  
The lethargy must have his quiet course:  
If not, he foams at mouth and by and by  
Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:  
Do you withdraw yourself a little while,  
He will recover straight: when he is gone,  
I would on great occasion speak with you.  
[Exit HARRY. DEAN crawls back onto the stage]  
How is it, general? have you not hurt your head?  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage, darkly] No, but that's the only thing that's not gonna be  
bruised tomorrow.  
  
DEAN: Dost thou mock me?  
  
RON: [offstage, sarcastically] Why, whatever gives you *that* idea?  
  
DRACO: [slightly hurt] I mock you! no, by heaven.  
Would you would bear your fortune like a man!  
  
DEAN: A horned man's a monster and a beast.  
  
GINNY: Well, that or has serious fashion issues.  
  
DRACO: There's many a beast then in a populous city,  
And many a civil monster.  
  
DEAN: Did he confess it?  
  
HARRY: Yes, he killed the butler in the water closet with the apple core. You  
win.  
  
DRACO: Good sir, be a man;  
Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked  
May draw with you: there's millions now alive  
That nightly lie in those unproper beds  
Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.  
O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,  
To lip a wanton in a secure couch,  
And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know;  
And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.  
  
DEAN: O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.  
  
RON: [darkly] A wise guy, maybe.  
  
DRACO: Stand you awhile apart;  
Confine yourself but in a patient list.  
Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief--  
A passion most unsuiting such a man--  
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,  
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy,  
Bade him anon return and here speak with me;  
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself,  
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,  
That dwell in every region of his face;  
For I will make him tell the tale anew,  
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when  
He hath, and is again to cope your wife:  
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience;  
Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,  
And nothing of a man.  
  
DEAN: Dost thou hear, Iago?  
I will be found most cunning in my patience;  
But--dost thou hear?--most bloody.  
  
SEAMUS: Nothing wrong with a *little* blood, Dean....  
  
DRACO: That's not amiss;  
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?  
[DEAN moves to far stage right]  
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,  
A housewife that by selling her desires  
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature  
That dotes on Cassio; as 'tis the strumpet's plague  
To beguile many and be beguiled by one:  
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain  
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes:  
[Re-enter HARRY, stage left]  
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;  
And his unbookish jealousy must construe  
Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures and light behavior,  
Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?  
  
HARRY: The worser that you give me the addition  
Whose want even kills me.  
  
DRACO: [consolingly] Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.  
[He lowers his voice]  
Now, if this suit lay in Bianca's power,  
How quickly should you speed!  
  
HARRY: Alas, poor caitiff!  
  
DEAN: Look, how he laughs already!  
  
DRACO: I never knew woman love man so.  
  
HARRY: Alas, poor rogue! I think, i' faith, she loves me.  
  
COLIN: Pansy?! No-one ever tells me *anything*....  
  
DEAN: Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.  
  
DRACO: Do you hear, Cassio?  
  
DEAN: Now he importunes him  
To tell it o'er: go to; well said, well said.  
  
DRACO: She gives it out that you shall marry her:  
Do you intend it?  
  
[HARRY just laughs and shakes his head]  
  
DEAN: Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?  
  
COLIN: Harry's not Italian, Dean....  
  
HARRY: I marry her! what? a customer! Prithee, bear some charity to my wit: do  
not think it so unwholesome.  
  
DEAN: So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.  
  
SEAMUS: And losers weepers. So there.  
  
DRACO: 'Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.  
  
HARRY: Prithee, say true.  
  
DRACO: I am a very villain else.  
  
RON: You're a villain anyway. So what?  
  
DEAN: Have you scored me? Well.  
  
CRABBE: [panicked] We're 'posed to be keepin' score?!  
  
HARRY: This is the monkey's own giving out: she is  
persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and  
flattery, not out of my promise.  
  
[DRACO laughs, turning one of his hand motions into a discreet beckoning to  
DEAN]  
  
DEAN: Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.  
  
HARRY: She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was the  
other day talking on the sea-bank with certain Venetians; and thither comes  
the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus about my neck--  
  
DEAN: Crying 'O dear Cassio!' as it were: his gesture  
imports it.  
  
HARRY: So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so hales, and pulls me: ha,  
ha, ha!  
  
DEAN: Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see that nose of  
yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.  
  
CRABBE: [hopeful] Puppy?  
  
HARRY: Well, I must leave her company.  
  
DRACO: Before me! look, where she comes. [under his breath] Hide me....  
  
HARRY: [also under his breath] You have to suffer for your art, don't you know  
that? [more loudly] 'Tis such another fitchew! marry a perfumed one.  
[PANSY stomps onstage]  
What do you mean by this haunting of me?  
  
PANSY: [shrilly] Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by  
that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I  
must take out the work?--A likely piece of work, that you should find it  
in your chamber, and not know who left it there! This is some minx's token,  
and I must take out the work? There; give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever  
you had it, I'll take out no work on't.  
  
HARRY: How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!  
  
DEAN: By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!  
  
PANSY: An you'll come to supper to-night, you may; an you will not, come when  
you are next prepared for.  
  
[She flounces offstage in a huff, leaving HARRY with the pink scarf]  
  
GINNY: [mystified] How'd she get that back? Didn't Harry have it last?  
  
DRACO: After her, after her.  
  
HARRY: 'Faith, I must; she'll rail in the street else.  
  
DRACO: Will you sup there?  
  
HARRY: 'Faith, I intend so.  
  
DRACO: Well, I may chance to see you; for I would very fain speak with you.  
  
HARRY: Prithee, come; will you? [undertone] Don't leave me alone with  
*her*....  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] Oops, Harry's lost it.[sing- songing] Harry... it's a  
*play*... it's not *real*...Harry....  
  
DRACO: [smiling] Go to; say no more.  
  
[Exit HARRY, who gets as far away from PANSY as he can]  
  
DEAN: [Advancing to center stage] How shall I murder him, Iago?  
  
DRACO: Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?  
  
DEAN: O Iago!  
  
DRACO: And did you see the handkerchief?  
  
SEAMUS: Yeah, he sneezed in it. I saw him.  
  
DEAN: Was that mine?  
  
SEAMUS: Well, it *was*. You sure you want it back now?  
  
DRACO: Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes the  
foolish woman your wife! she gave it him, and he  
hath given it his whore.  
  
COLIN: Wow, when you put it like that, it sounds a little cold, doesn't it?  
  
HERMIONE: Yes, Colin. Do you want to be gagged again?  
  
COLIN: But I didn't do anything!  
  
HERMIONE: Do you?  
  
COLIN: [pouty] No.  
  
HERMIONE: Then shut up.  
  
DEAN: I would have him nine years a-killing.  
A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman!  
  
DRACO: Nay, you must forget that.  
  
SEAMUS: Yeah, it could spoil his whole plan if you don't.  
  
DEAN: Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night; for she shall  
not live: no, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my  
hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by an  
emperor's side and command him tasks.  
  
DRACO: Nay, that's not your way.  
  
SEAMUS: Wanna bet?  
  
DEAN: Hang her! I do but say what she is: so delicate  
with her needle: an admirable musician: O! she  
will sing the savageness out of a bear: of so high  
and plenteous wit and invention:--  
  
DRACO: She's the worse for all this.  
  
DEAN: O, a thousand thousand times: and then, of so  
gentle a condition!  
  
SEAMUS: Hey, I'm gentle!  
  
DRACO: Ay, too gentle.  
  
DEAN: Nay, that's certain: but yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of  
it, Iago!  
  
RON: Oh, the pain, the pain...  
  
DRACO: If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her  
patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes  
near nobody.  
  
HARRY: Ha! Take that!  
  
DEAN: I will chop her into messes: cuckold me!  
  
DRACO: O, 'tis foul in her.  
  
DEAN: With mine officer!  
  
SEAMUS: More kink!  
  
DRACO: That's fouler.  
  
SEAMUS: Nuh-*uh*!  
  
DEAN: Get me some poison, Iago; this night: I'll not  
expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty  
unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago.  
  
DRACO: Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath  
contaminated.  
  
HERMIONE: Poetic injustice....  
  
DEAN: Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very good.  
  
DRACO: And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker: you  
shall hear more by midnight.  
  
RON: Already got a headstone picked out and everything....  
  
DEAN: Excellent good.  
[There is a brief silence. DEAN frowns, then shrugs.]  
...What trumpet is that same?  
  
DRACO: Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico  
Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is with him.  
  
[Enter NEVILLE with his teddy bear and GINNY. They are flanked by CRABBE and  
GOYLE. CRABBE is scribbling in COLIN's script]  
  
NEVILLE: Saveyouworthygeneral?  
  
DEAN: With all my heart, sir.  
  
NEVILLE: The...the...the.... [He goes white and sways on his feet]  
  
HERMIONE: [encouragingly] Just relax, Neville. It'll be over soon.  
  
NEVILLE: [speaking into his teddy bear] The duke and senators of Venice greet  
you?  
  
[Everyone stands still for a minute, then GOYLE, seized by a flash of  
inspiration, takes NEVILLE's teddy bear and gives it to DEAN.]  
  
NEVILLE: [shrieks] BOBO!!  
  
DEAN: I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage, wide-eyed] No *wonder* the man's a general!  
  
LOCKHART: Mind out of the gutter, if you please, Mr. Finnegan.  
  
[DEAN holds the teddy bear at arm's length for a moment, then holds it up to his  
ear as if listening to it]  
  
GINNY: And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?  
  
DRACO: [bowing] I am very glad to see you, signior  
Welcome to Cyprus.  
  
NEVILLE: [grabbing at his teddy bear. DEAN dodges deftly out of the way] I  
thank you How does Lieutenant Cassio?  
  
DRACO: Lives, sir.  
  
GINNY: Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord  
An unkind breach: but you shall make all well.  
  
DEAN: Are you sure of that?  
  
GINNY: My lord?  
  
DEAN: [To Bobo] 'This fail you not to do, as you will--'  
  
NEVILLE: [tries again to get Bobo away from DEAN]  
He did not call he's busy in the paper Is there division 'twixt my lord and  
Cassio?  
  
GINNY: A most unhappy one: I would do much  
To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.  
  
DEAN: [throttles Bobo] Fire and brimstone!  
  
GINNY: [startled] My lord?  
  
DEAN: [to Bobo] Are you wise?  
  
GINNY: What, is he angry?  
  
NEVILLE: May be the letter moved him For, as I think, they do command him  
home Deputing Cassio in his government?  
  
GINNY: Trust me, I am glad on't.  
  
DEAN: Indeed!  
  
GINNY: My lord?  
  
DEAN: I am glad to see you mad.  
  
COLIN: I didn't know teddy bears could get mad....  
  
GINNY: Why, sweet Othello,--  
  
DEAN: [Slaps her] Devil!  
  
RON: Hey! Knock it off, Dean, or I swear I'll....  
  
GINNY: I have not deserved this.  
  
NEVILLE: My lord this would not be believed in Venice Though I should swear I  
saw't 'tis very much Make her amends she weeps?  
  
DEAN: [shaking Bobo, still gripping it firmly around the neck]  
O devil, devil!  
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,  
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.  
Out of my sight!  
  
GINNY: I will not stay to offend you.  
  
[Exit GINNY, massaging her face]  
  
SEAMUS: Well, now both the Weasleys have been smacked in the face. Who's next,  
then?  
  
NEVILLE: Truly, an obedient lady I do beseech your lordship call her back?  
  
DEAN: Mistress!  
  
GINNY: [poking her head out onto the stage] My lord?  
  
DEAN: What would you with her, sir?  
  
SEAMUS: Ask a stupid question...  
  
NEVILLE: [blushes and forgets stage fright] Who, I, my lord?  
  
DEAN: Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn:  
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on,  
And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;  
And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,  
Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.  
Concerning this, sir,--O well-painted passion!--  
I am commanded home. Get you away;  
I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,  
And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!  
[Re-exit GINNY, in a huff]  
Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,  
I do entreat that we may sup together:  
You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.--Goats and monkeys!  
  
[Exit DEAN, who immediately goes over to GINNY and begins apologizing. He gives  
her Bobo the teddy bear]  
  
GINNY: [sniffley] You just don't want Ron to beat you to a pulp.  
  
DEAN: Well, there's that, too.  
  
NEVILLE: Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate  
Call all in all sufficient? Is this the nature  
Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue  
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance,  
Could neither graze nor pierce?  
  
HERMIONE: [impressed] Neville?  
  
DRACO: He is much changed.  
  
NEVILLE: Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain?  
  
DRACO: He's that he is: I may not breathe my censure  
What he might be: if what he might he is not,  
I would to heaven he were!  
  
NEVILLE: What, strike his wife!  
  
DRACO: 'Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew  
That stroke would prove the worst!  
  
NEVILLE: Is it his use?  
Or did the letters work upon his blood,  
And new-create this fault?  
  
SEAMUS: Who are you and what did you do with the guy who threw up on Hermione's  
shoes two acts ago?  
  
DRACO: Alas, alas!  
It is not honesty in me to speak  
What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,  
And his own courses will denote him so  
That I may save my speech: do but go after,  
And mark how he continues.  
  
NEVILLE: [sadly] I am sorry that I am deceived in him.  
  
[All exit. A round of applause goes up for NEVILLE, started by HARRY and DRACO]  
  
HERMIONE: [kisses NEVILLE on the cheek] I knew you had it in you, Neville!  
  
NEVILLE: ...It wasn't so bad... can I have Bobo back now?  
  
GOYLE: I have a headache.  
  
End scene I  
  
  
A/N: It's getting harder to be funny, so this scene is *really* weird.  
Sorry in advance.  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene ii  
  
  
[Enter DEAN and HERMIONE. DEAN is lagging a few paces behind HERMIONE, who  
is walking around the stage in large circles]  
  
DEAN: You have seen nothing then?  
  
HERMIONE: Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.  
  
RON: [imitating HERMIONE] I always wondered why my lady made me wear a  
blindfold all the time...  
  
DEAN: Yet, you have seen Cassio and she together.  
  
SEAMUS: Threesome? Not fair! Harry, how come I wasn't invited?  
  
HARRY: Wasn't it you who said last scene that this was just a play? It's  
not real.  
  
SEAMUS: That was then! This is...  
  
DRACO: This is when your hormones go into overdrive, Finnegan?  
  
HERMIONE: But then I saw no harm, and then I heard  
Each syllable that breath made up between them.  
  
DEAN: What, did they never whisper?  
  
HERMIONE: Never, my lord.  
  
DEAN: Nor send you out o' the way?  
  
HERMIONE: Never.  
  
RON: [imitating HERMIONE again] Although they did lock me in the closet  
once...  
  
COLIN: Wow! How'd you get out?  
  
RON: I just... I just opened the door and out I came.  
  
DRACO: Out of the mouths of babes....  
  
DEAN: To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?  
  
HERMIONE: Never, my lord.  
  
SEAMUS: Desdemona wears a mask? I thought she was supposed to be pretty....  
  
DEAN: That's strange.  
  
SEAMUS: You're telling me.  
  
HERMIONE: I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,  
Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other,  
Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.  
If any wretch have put this in your head,  
Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!  
For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true,  
There's no man happy; the purest of their wives  
Is foul as slander.  
  
SEAMUS: [whistles] Rise up, feminist agenda! Let us feel your teeth and  
claws... and whips... and... ahem. [looks around] Did I say that out loud?  
  
DEAN: Bid her come hither: go.  
[Exit HERMIONE, with a curtsy]  
She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd  
That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,  
A closet lock and key of villanous secrets  
And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.  
  
[Enter GINNY, followed closely by HERMIONE]  
  
GINNY: My lord, what is your will?  
  
DEAN: Pray, chuck, come hither.  
  
GINNY: What is your pleasure?  
  
SEAMUS: Well, *that* would take a while....  
  
DEAN: Let me see your eyes;  
Look in my face.  
  
SEAMUS: No, no, no, you're starting all wrong!  
  
GINNY: What horrible fancy's this?  
  
DEAN: [To HERMIONE] Some of your function, mistress;  
Leave procreants alone and shut the door;  
Cough, or cry 'hem,' if any body come:  
Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch.  
  
[Exit HERMIONE, curtsying again]  
  
GINNY: Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?  
I understand a fury in your words.  
But not the words.  
  
SEAMUS: On your knees? Now we're talking!  
  
[RON casually puts SEAMUS in a headlock]  
  
RON: You realize you're talking about my little sister... don't you, Seamus?  
  
SEAMUS: [choking] Yeah... yeah... I'm just clowning, really! I'm sorry!  
  
RON: [releasing him] That's better.  
  
SEAMUS: [pulling out crossed fingers from behind his back and muttering  
under his breath] Not.  
  
DEAN: Why, what art thou?  
  
DRACO: People are very fond of that question, for some reason.  
  
GINNY: Your wife, my lord; your true  
And loyal wife.  
  
SEAMUS: That's what you think.  
  
DEAN: Come, swear it, damn thyself  
Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves  
Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damn'd:  
Swear thou art honest.  
  
GINNY: Heaven doth truly know it.  
  
SEAMUS: And a few other people do too, but we're not talking about that now,  
are we?  
  
DEAN: Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.  
  
SEAMUS: That's what I just said!  
  
GINNY: To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?  
  
SEAMUS: [running across the stage to get away from RON] The whipped cream  
was going a bit far, Des.  
  
DEAN: O Desdemona! away! away! away!  
  
GINNY: Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?  
Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?  
If haply you my father do suspect  
An instrument of this your calling back,  
Lay not your blame on me: If you have lost him,  
Why, I have lost him too.  
  
COLIN: What does your dad have to with anything, Ginny?  
  
CRABBE: ...duckies...  
  
COLIN: I don't think so... do people *get* this upset over ducks?  
  
CRABBE: No, look. Duckies.  
  
COLIN: Oh, hey! Look, I can draw an elephant.  
  
DEAN: Had it pleased heaven  
To try me with affliction; had they rain'd  
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.  
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,  
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,  
I should have found in some place of my soul  
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me  
A fixed figure for the time of scorn  
To point his slow unmoving finger at!  
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:  
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,  
Where either I must live, or bear no life;  
The fountain from the which my current runs,  
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!  
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads  
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,  
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,--  
Ay, there, look grim as hell!  
  
HARRY: Not very subtle, is he?  
  
DRACO: No, not really.  
  
GINNY: I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.  
  
SEAMUS: He doesn't!  
  
DEAN: O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,  
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,  
Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet  
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst  
ne'er been born!  
  
GINNY: Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?  
  
SEAMUS: I told you! The whipped cream was going too far!  
  
[RON tackles SEAMUS from behind. They fight. Eventually the Luggage rouses  
itself from where it's been sleeping and follows them around.]  
  
LOCKHART: [to Luggage] Don't kill them until after the final performance,  
all right? You can go hunt squirrels when we're done here.  
  
DEAN: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,  
Made to write 'whore' upon? What committed!  
Committed! O thou public commoner!  
I should make very forges of my cheeks,  
That would to cinders burn up modesty,  
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!  
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,  
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets  
Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,  
And will not hear it. What committed!  
Impudent strumpet!  
  
GINNY: By heaven, you do me wrong.  
  
DEAN: Are you not a strumpet?  
  
GINNY: No, as I am a Christian:  
If to preserve this vessel for my lord  
From any other foul unlawful touch  
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.  
  
  
DEAN: What, not a whore?  
  
[SEAMUS makes some weak gurgling sounds around the gag RON has forced into  
his mouth. The Luggage is circling him like a vulture]  
  
GINNY: No, as I shall be saved.  
  
DEAN: Is't possible?  
  
GINNY: O, heaven forgive us!  
  
DEAN: I cry you mercy, then:  
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice  
That married with Othello.  
[Raising his voice]  
You, mistress,  
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,  
And keep the gate of hell!  
  
RON: Does anyone but me think that's a little harsh?  
  
[Re-enter HERMIONE, trying very hard not to look angry]  
  
DEAN: You, you, ay, you!  
We have done our course; there's money for your pains:  
I pray you, turn the key and keep our counsel.  
  
[Exit DEAN off the front of the stage with a dramatic swirl of his cloak]  
  
HERMIONE: Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?  
How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady?  
  
GINNY: 'Faith, half asleep.  
  
HERMIONE: Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?  
  
GINNY: With who?  
  
HERMIONE: Why, with my lord, madam.  
  
GINNY: Who is thy lord?  
  
SEAMUS: [undoing the gag] Is that a trick question? Ron, next time tie up  
my hands if you want me to stay gagged, okay?  
  
HERMIONE: He that is yours, sweet lady.  
  
GINNY: I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia;  
I cannot weep; nor answer have I none,  
But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight  
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: remember;  
And call thy husband hither.  
  
RON: Even one word, Seamus, and you're not going to escape short of someone  
getting through me to untie you.  
  
SEAMUS: ...Promise?  
  
HERMIONE: Here's a change indeed!  
  
[Exit HERMIONE]  
  
GINNY: 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.  
How have I been behaved, that he might stick  
The small'st opinion on my least misuse?  
  
[Re-enter HERMIONE with DRACO]  
  
DRACO: What is your pleasure, madam?  
How is't with you?  
  
SEAMUS: A little... [glances at RON] disappointing, actually. [to RON]  
See, I can behave!  
  
RON: Hmp. I'll believe that when you keep it up.  
  
GINNY: I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes  
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:  
He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,  
I am a child to chiding.  
  
DRACO: What's the matter, lady?  
  
HARRY: Stabbing pains... right here....  
  
RON: Harry! Not you too!  
  
HARRY: What?  
  
HERMIONE: Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her.  
Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,  
As true hearts cannot bear.  
  
SEAMUS: Bewhored? That's a word? I wonder if I can work it into a History  
of Magic report.  
  
GINNY: Am I that name, Iago?  
  
DRACO: What name, fair lady?  
  
HARRY: Desdemona. Is she?  
  
GINNY: Such as she says my lord did say I was.  
  
SEAMUS: Come on... you can say it, you're a big girl....  
  
HERMIONE: He call'd her whore: a beggar in his drink  
Could not have laid such terms upon his callat.  
  
SEAMUS: See? Hermione can say it.  
  
DRACO: Why did he so?  
  
GINNY: I do not know; I am sure I am none such.  
  
DRACO: Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!  
  
HERMIONE: Hath she forsook so many noble matches,  
Her father and her country and her friends,  
To be call'd whore? would it not make one weep?  
  
GINNY: It is my wretched fortune.  
  
DRACO: Beshrew him for't!  
How comes this trick upon him?  
  
RON: Oh, silly us. We thought *you* set him up!  
  
GINNY: Nay, heaven doth know.  
  
HERMIONE: I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,  
Some busy and insinuating rogue,  
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,  
Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.  
  
RON: Could it be that you're *married* to the little ferret? Hmmm....  
  
SEAMUS: Don't mince words, Hermione! Say what you mean!  
  
DRACO: Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.  
  
GINNY: If any such there be, heaven pardon him!  
  
HERMIONE: A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones!  
Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company?  
What place? what time? what form? what likelihood?  
The Moor's abused by some most villanous knave,  
Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.  
O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,  
And put in every honest hand a whip  
To lash the rascals naked through the world  
Even from the east to the west!  
  
DRACO: Speak within door.  
  
HERMIONE: O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was  
That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,  
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.  
  
COLIN: You and Dean? But I thought....  
  
RON: [darkly] You thought what?  
  
SEAMUS: [grinning] Yes, what?  
  
COLIN: [miserably] No-one ever tells me *anything*.  
  
DRACO: You are a fool; go to.  
  
GINNY: O good Iago,  
What shall I do to win my lord again?  
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,  
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:  
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,  
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,  
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,  
Delighted them in any other form;  
Or that I do not yet, and ever did.  
And ever will--though he do shake me off  
To beggarly divorcement--love him dearly,  
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;  
And his unkindness may defeat my life,  
But never taint my love. I cannot say 'whore:'  
It does abhor me now I speak the word;  
To do the act that might the addition earn  
Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.  
  
DRACO: I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humour:  
The business of the state does him offence,  
And he does chide with you.  
  
GINNY: If 'twere no other--  
  
DRACO: 'Tis but so, I warrant.  
  
HARRY: Sure. Go believe a supervillain, see what we care.  
  
[NEVILLE fetches Bobo from where GINNY dropped it between scenes and in so  
doing trips over his own feet with a loud crash]  
  
DRACO: Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!  
The messengers of Venice stay the meat;  
Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.  
  
[Exit HERMIONE and GINNY. GINNY is crying a little too hard and her face is  
beginning to get blotchy. Enter RON]  
  
DRACO: How now, Roderigo!  
  
RON: I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.  
  
SEAMUS: No, really?  
  
DRACO: What in the contrary?  
  
RON: Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago;  
and rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me  
all conveniency than suppliest me with the least  
advantage of hope. I will indeed no longer endure  
it, nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace what  
already I have foolishly suffered.  
  
DRACO: Will you hear me, Roderigo?  
  
SEAMUS: Sadly, yes.  
  
RON: 'Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and  
performances are no kin together.  
  
DRACO: You charge me most unjustly.  
  
DEAN: [aggrieved] Everyone wants the discount rate....  
  
RON: With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of  
my means. The jewels you have had from me to  
deliver to Desdemona would half have corrupted a  
votarist: you have told me she hath received them  
and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden  
respect and acquaintance, but I find none.  
  
DRACO: Well; go to; very well.  
  
RON: Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis  
not very well: nay, I think it is scurvy, and begin  
to find myself fobbed in it.  
  
GOYLE: [helpfully] Vitamin C'll clear that scurvy right up.  
  
DRACO: Very well.  
  
RON: I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself  
known to Desdemona: if she will return me my  
jewels, I will give over my suit and repent my  
unlawful solicitation; if not, assure yourself I  
will seek satisfaction of you.  
  
DRACO: You have said now.  
  
RON: Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of doing.  
  
DEAN: Huh?  
  
DRACO: Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and even from  
this instant to build on thee a better opinion than  
ever before. Give me thy hand, Roderigo: thou hast  
taken against me a most just exception; but yet, I  
protest, I have dealt most directly in thy affair.  
  
SEAMUS: *Now* is the time to drown kittens and blind puppies!  
  
CRABBE: Puppies! Don't hurt the puppies! [He starts to cry.]  
  
RON: It hath not appeared.  
  
DRACO: I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your  
suspicion is not without wit and judgment. But,  
Roderigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed, which I  
have greater reason to believe now than ever, I mean  
purpose, courage and valour, this night show it: if  
thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona,  
take me from this world with treachery and devise  
engines for my life.  
  
SEAMUS: And I have some lovely oceanfront property in Austria if you want  
it...  
  
RON: Well, what is it? is it within reason and compass?  
  
DRACO: Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice  
to depute Cassio in Othello's place.  
  
RON: Is that true? why, then Othello and Desdemona  
return again to Venice.  
  
DRACO: O, no; he goes into Mauritania and takes away with  
him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be  
lingered here by some accident: wherein none can be  
so determinate as the removing of Cassio.  
  
RON: How do you mean, removing of him?  
  
DRACO: Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place;  
knocking out his brains.  
  
SEAMUS: Pink slips are so passe.  
  
RON: And that you would have me to do?  
  
DRACO: Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right.  
He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither will I  
go to him: he knows not yet of his horrorable  
fortune. If you will watch his going thence, which  
I will fashion to fall out between twelve and one,  
you may take him at your pleasure: I will be near  
to second your attempt, and he shall fall between  
us. Come, stand not amazed at it, but go along with  
me; I will show you such a necessity in his death  
that you shall think yourself bound to put it on  
him. It is now high suppertime, and the night grows  
to waste: about it.  
  
RON: I will hear further reason for this.  
  
DEAN: DO you really think it'll help? he's been twisting you around his  
little finger through the entire play!  
  
DRACO: And you shall be satisfied.  
  
[Exit both DRACO and DEAN. SEAMUS, offstage, is holding a coil of rope.]  
  
SEAMUS: See, if you want someone to stay gagged, you need to tie them up  
like that, Ron.  
  
RON: Yeah, but I'm not gagged.  
  
SEAMUS: Do you want to be?  
  
RON: No, not really.  
  
SEAMUS: Don't complain then. Now try and escape. It's part of the fun.  
  
DRACO: I'm not asking. I'm really not asking.  
  
DEAN: Seamus, is that a half-hitch?  
  
SEAMUS: No, a granny...  
  
HERMIONE: You've done it all wrong. See, it's like *this*...  
  
RON: Ow! Hermione!  
  
HARRY: I'm not asking either.  
  
End scene ii  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene iii  
  
  
[Enter DEAN, NEVILLE, GINNY, and HERMIONE. RON is still tied up offstage,  
but now he's gagged and trying to escape]  
  
NEVILLE: I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.  
  
RON: grft!  
  
COLIN: Now you know how I felt! Are you sorry?  
  
RON: nrgl!  
  
COLIN: Say you're sorry and I'll untie you...  
  
HARRY: He's gagged, Colin. How can he say he's sorry?  
  
SEAMUS: Pay no attention to Harry, Colin. He's a wet blanket, always trying  
to ruin our fun.  
  
DEAN: O, pardon me: 'twill do me good to walk.  
  
NEVILLE: Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.  
  
GINNY: Your honour is most welcome.  
  
SEAMUS: But I'd rather have your body...  
  
DEAN: Will you walk, sir?  
O,--Desdemona,--  
  
GINNY: My lord?  
  
DEAN: Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned  
forthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look it be done.  
  
SEAMUS: See? That's your problem, Dean, you're so narrow-minded....  
  
GINNY: I will, my lord.  
  
SEAMUS: Spoilsport.  
  
[Exit DEAN and NEVILLE. DEAN immediately goes over to watch RON trying to  
escape his bonds.]  
  
HERMIONE: How goes it now? he looks gentler than he did.  
  
SEAMUS: He's not coming at me with a broadsword any more, and that's usually  
a plus.  
  
GINNY: He says he will return incontinent:  
He hath commanded me to go to bed,  
And bade me to dismiss you.  
  
DEAN: I should say so, if he's returning incontinent. To and from the  
chamber pot all night long... it won't be pretty.  
  
SEAMUS: Oh, I don't know about *that*.  
  
HERMIONE: Dismiss me!  
  
SEAMUS: Fired, pink slip, join the unemployment brigade, clean out your  
desk, see the security guys for a full cavity search, the works.  
  
GINNY: It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,.  
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu:  
We must not now displease him.  
  
HERMIONE: I would you had never seen him!  
  
DEAN: That's low, Hermione!  
  
GINNY: So would not I  
my love doth so approve him,  
That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his frowns--  
Prithee, unpin me,--have grace and favour in them.  
  
HERMIONE: I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.  
  
SEAMUS: The silk ones with the leopard pattern, right?  
  
COLIN: What bed?  
  
GINNY: All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!  
If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me  
In one of those same sheets.  
  
SEAMUS: Ooh, nice image....  
  
DEAN: [offstage, in an undertone] Note to self, find Mum's old sheets in the  
attic. The ones I'm not supposed to know about.... [louder] Hey, Crabbe,  
can I borrow your quill?  
  
CRABBE: No. Drawing kitties.  
  
RON: ngh! smscrpt!  
  
HERMIONE: Come, come you talk.  
  
SEAMUS: Well, he gets points for trying, anyway... hey, Neville, where'd you  
learn how to gag people like that?  
  
GINNY: My mother had a maid call'd Barbara:  
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad  
And did forsake her: she had a song of 'willow;'  
An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,  
And she died singing it: that song to-night  
Will not go from my mind; I have much to do,  
But to go hang my head all at one side,  
And sing it like poor Barbara. Prithee, dispatch.  
  
HARRY: Sure. Girl falls for crazy guy then kills herself. Why *not* sing  
her favorite song when you're depressed?  
  
HERMIONE: Shall I go fetch your night-gown?  
  
SEAMUS: Only if you can't find the French maid's outfit....  
  
GINNY: No, unpin me here.  
  
SEAMUS: Yes! Do that! Forget the maid's outfit!  
  
GINNY: This Lodovico is a proper man.  
  
HERMIONE: A very handsome man.  
  
GINNY: He speaks well.  
  
HERMIONE: I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot  
to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.  
  
  
GINNY: [Singing. She has a very poor voice] The poor soul sat sighing by a  
sycamore tree,  
Sing all a green willow:  
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,  
Sing willow, willow, willow:  
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans;  
Sing willow, willow, willow;  
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones;  
Lay by these:--  
Sing willow, willow, willow;  
  
[Everyone offstage except DEAN and GOYLE claps their hands over their ears]  
  
SEAMUS: Banshee!  
  
DEAN: [all starry eyed] Beautiful, isn't it...?  
  
SEAMUS: [looks scared] I need a countercurse over here! Now! She did  
somethign to Dean's ears! And I like his ears!  
  
LOCKHART: Singing double... definitely a singing double....  
  
PANSY: I'll do it!  
  
DRACO: You have a worse voice than she does.  
  
PANSY: Are you suggesting you do it?  
  
GINNY: [to HERMIONE, speaking] Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon:--  
  
HARRY: [eagerly] Dean, get onstage *now*! I don't care about the script!  
Keep her from singing any more!  
  
DEAN: You say that like it would be a good thing.  
  
GINNY: [Singing again. Her voice isn't any better] Sing all a green willow  
must be my garland.  
Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-  
[Speaking again] Nay, that's not next.--Hark! who is't that knocks?  
  
SEAMUS: It's Dean! It's Dean! Stop singing!  
  
HERMIONE: It's the wind.  
  
SEAMUS: [muttering] Traitor.  
  
GINNY: [Singing] I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?  
Sing willow, willow, willow:  
If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men!  
  
GOYLE: [entranced] Pretty....  
  
GINNY: [speaking normally] So, get thee gone; good night. My eyes do itch;  
Doth that bode weeping?  
  
DEAN: Well, I feel like crying.  
  
DRACO: You speak for all of us, but we have different reasons.  
  
HERMIONE: 'Tis neither here nor there.  
  
GINNY: I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!  
Dost thou in conscience think,--tell me, Emilia,--  
That there be women do abuse their husbands  
In such gross kind?  
  
HERMIONE: There be some such, no question.  
  
SEAMUS: Do you have addresses?  
  
GINNY: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?  
  
HERMIONE: Why, would not you?  
  
GINNY: No, by this heavenly light!  
  
HERMIONE: Nor I neither by this heavenly light;  
I might do't as well i' the dark.  
  
SEAMUS: Ooh... Can I have that in writing, Hermione?  
  
GINNY: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?  
  
HERMIONE: The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.  
For a small vice.  
  
SEAMUS: [injured] Small?  
  
HARRY: Hermione calls 'em like she sees 'em, Seamus.  
  
GINNY: In troth, I think thou wouldst not.  
  
HERMIONE: In troth, I think I should; and undo't when I had  
done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a  
joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for  
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty  
exhibition; but for the whole world,--why, who would  
not make her husband a cuckold to make him a  
monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.  
  
GINNY: Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong  
For the whole world.  
  
HERMIONE: Why the wrong is but a wrong i' the world: and  
having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your  
own world, and you might quickly make it right.  
  
SEAMUS: Make it right, Hermione! You go, girlfr- Did I say that out loud?  
  
GINNY: I do not think there is any such woman.  
  
DRACO: Naive much?  
  
HERMIONE: Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would  
store the world they played for.  
But I do think it is their husbands' faults  
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,  
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,  
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,  
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,  
Or scant our former having in despite;  
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,  
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know  
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell  
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,  
As husbands have. What is it that they do  
When they change us for others? Is it sport?  
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?  
I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?  
It is so too: and have not we affections,  
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?  
Then let them use us well: else let them know,  
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.  
  
HARRY: Sure, blame the man.  
  
SEAMUS: [all starry-eyed] Ooh, more feminism... when are you going to start  
wearing black leather, Hermione?  
  
GINNY: Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send,  
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!  
  
[Exit HERMIONE and GINNY. Offstage, a small crowd has formed around RON and  
is watching his renewed struggles avidly]  
  
SEAMUS: Cute, isn't he? I thought he'd be loose by now...  
  
DRACO: You should untie him. He has to go onstage next scene.  
  
SEAMUS: You mean he can't do it like that?  
  
DRACO: No. I have to kill him, so he needs to twitch at least a little.  
  
DEAN: Well, what if we just ungag him?  
  
COLIN: No! I worked really hard on that gag!  
  
SEAMUS: [looking at RON thoughtfully] How do you feel about handcuffs?  
  
NEVILLE: [without thinking] They chafe... [Everyone stares at him] oh, you  
weren't talking to me, were you? Never mind....  
  
DRACO: Handcuffs are fine.  
  
[SEAMUS grins. RON tries to crawl away without the use of his arms or legs]  
  
SEAMUS: Come on, Ron, you'll enjoy it....  
  
HERMIONE: [to LOCKHART] Did you spike that pumpkin juice?  
  
LOCKHART: Miss Granger, I'm surprised. Whatever makes you think that?  
  
  
End Act IV  
  
  



	6. Act V

The Play's the Thing: Act V scene i  
  
  
[Enter DRACO and RON. RON is not tied or handcuffed, although he looks a bit  
worn out]  
  
DRACO: Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come:  
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home:  
Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow:  
It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,  
And fix most firm thy resolution.  
  
RON: Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't.  
  
DRACO: Here, at thy hand: be bold, and take thy stand.  
  
[Walks over to the edge of the stage and waits]  
  
RON: I have no great devotion to the deed;  
And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons:  
'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword: he dies.  
  
  
DRACO: I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,  
And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,  
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,  
Every way makes my gain: live Roderigo,  
He calls me to a restitution large  
Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him,  
As gifts to Desdemona;  
It must not be: if Cassio do remain,  
He hath a daily beauty in his life  
That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor  
May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril:  
No, he must die. But so: I hear him coming.  
  
[Enter HARRY]  
  
RON: I know his gait, 'tis he.--Villain, thou diest!  
  
[He stabs at HARRY with his wand. HARRY has to jump out of the way to avoid  
it.]  
  
RON: [under his breath] That *would* have been for hitting me earlier....  
  
HARRY: That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,  
But that my coat is better than thou know'st  
I will make proof of thine.  
  
[HARRY forgoes his wand and smacks RON upside the head. RON, after a quick  
look at his script, goes down]  
  
RON: O, I am slain!  
  
SEAMUS: You're a big sissy.  
  
[DRACO sneaks up behind HARRY. He pokes HARRY quickly in the leg with his  
wand, then dashes offstage]  
  
HARRY: I am maim'd for ever. Help, ho! murder! murder!  
  
[HARRY falls to the ground and lays there, not quite sure how to act like  
someone who's just had his leg almost cut off. Enter DEAN.]  
  
DEAN: The voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word.  
  
RON: O, villain that I am!  
  
SEAMUS: [singsonging] Someone has low self-esteem issues...  
  
DEAN: It is even so.  
  
HARRY: O, help, ho! light! a surgeon!  
  
DRACO: [protesting automatically] I barely touched you!  
  
DEAN: 'Tis he:--O brave Iago, honest and just,  
That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!  
Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,  
And your unblest fate hies: strumpet, I come.  
Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;  
Thy bed, lust-stain'd, shall with lust's blood be spotted.  
  
[Exit DEAN]  
  
SEAMUS: [to DEAN] You were great.  
  
DEAN: I barely had any lines.  
  
SEAMUS: But they were good ones....  
  
[Enter NEVILLE and COLIN. COLIN, for a change, is not gagged. CRABBE,  
offstage, has COLIN's script and is drawing on it]  
  
HARRY: What, ho! no watch? no passage? murder! murder!  
  
COLIN: Harry, what are you yelling for? Everyone's behaving really  
strangely, I think something's wrong.  
  
SEAMUS: Nothing's wrong. Hush up.  
  
HARRY: O, help!  
  
NEVILLE: Hark!  
  
RON: O wretched villain!  
  
NEVILLE: Two or three groan: it is a heavy night:  
These may be counterfeits: let's think't unsafe  
To come in to the cry without more help.  
  
RON: Nobody come? then shall I bleed to death.  
  
SEAMUS: And the treatment of choice for head pain is... the tacky pink  
scarf! Harry? Toss the scarf over here, would you please?  
  
NEVILLE: Hark!  
  
DEAN: [Sings quietly] ... the herald angels si-ing....  
  
[Re-enter DRACO, with his wand lit]  
  
COLIN: Oh, look, it's Draco. Why's your wand lit? I think we have enough  
light.  
  
DRACO: Who's there? whose noise is this that ones on murder?  
  
NEVILLE: We do not know.  
  
[COLIN blinks and looks around]  
  
COLIN: That's Harry and Ron, remember?  
  
DRACO: Did not you hear a cry?  
  
HARRY: Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me!  
  
[DRACO rushes over to HARRY.]  
  
DRACO: What's the matter?  
  
COLIN: I'm so confused...  
  
NEVILLE: [ignores COLIN and acts as though he's given the proper line for  
once]  
The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.  
  
DRACO: What are you here that cry so grievously?  
  
HARRY: [hopefully] Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains!  
Give me some help.  
  
DRACO: [helps HARRY sit up, then touches his cheek] O me, lieutenant! what  
villains have done this?  
  
SEAMUS: You did!  
  
HARRY: I think that one of them is hereabout,  
And cannot make away.  
  
DRACO: O treacherous villains!  
What are you there? come in, and give some help.  
  
RON: [to anyone listening to him] O, help me here!  
  
HARRY: That's one of them.  
  
DRACO: O murderous slave! O villain!  
  
[Stabs RON with his wand, then immediately returns to HARRY's side]  
  
RON: O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!  
  
HARRY: [under his breath and indistinctly] O shut up.  
  
DRACO: [angrily] Kill men i' the dark!--Where be these bloody thieves?--  
How silent is this town!--Ho! murder! murder!--  
What may you be? are you of good or evil?  
  
NEVILLE: As you shall prove us, praise us.  
  
DRACO: [blinks] Signior Lodovico?  
  
NEVILLE: He, sir.  
  
SEAMUS: Laughing already. Bad news for you, Malfoy.  
  
DRACO: I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains.  
  
COLIN: Harry! You're hurt? Why didn't you let on?  
  
DRACO: [to HARRY] How is't, brother!  
  
HARRY: My leg is cut in two.  
  
SEAMUS: Whiner... he barely touched you!  
  
DRACO: Marry, heaven forbid!  
Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt.  
  
[Enter PANSY]  
  
PANSY: What is the matter, ho? who is't that cried?  
  
DRACO: [snapping at her] Who is't that cried!  
  
PANSY: [making a face and not sounding at all sincere] O my dear Cassio. my  
sweet Cassio. O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio.  
  
DEAN: She's the one who needs a gag....  
  
SEAMUS: Why waste it? She wouldn't enjoy it.  
  
DRACO: O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect  
Who they should be that have thus many led you?  
  
HARRY: No...  
  
COLIN: Neville said we were supposed to be looking for you. Which is silly,  
because you've been here the whole time.  
  
DRACO: Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair,  
To bear him easily hence!  
  
[HARRY pretends to faint into DRACO's arms]  
  
PANSY: [looking bored] Alas, he faints. O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio.  
  
DRACO: [straightening HARRY's glasses] Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash  
To be a party in this injury.  
Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come;  
Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?  
Alas my friend and my dear countryman  
Roderigo! no:--yes, sure: O heaven! Roderigo.  
  
  
COLIN: You mean Ron.  
  
DRACO: Even he, sir; did you know him?  
  
COLIN: [startled] Of course I know him! It's Ron!  
  
DRACO: Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;  
These bloody accidents must excuse my manners,  
That so neglected you.  
  
COLIN: Huh?  
  
DRACO: How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!  
  
COLIN: Ron, get up. This is getting really weird.  
  
DRACO: He, he 'tis he.  
  
COLIN: [crossly] I know!  
  
[The Luggage wanders onstage cunningly disguised as a chair through the use  
of someone's cloak. DRACO and HARRY look at it, then look at each other.  
HARRY promptly stands up, 'helped' by DRACO's arm around his waist]  
  
DRACO: O, that's well said; the chair!  
  
NEVILLE: [gags COLIN and proceeds to steal his lines] Some good man bear him  
carefully from hence;  
I'll fetch the general's surgeon.  
[To PANSY]  
For you, mistress,  
Save you your labour. He that lies slain here, Cassio,  
Was my dear friend: what malice was between you?  
  
HARRY: None in the world; nor do I know the man.  
  
COLIN: NRGH!! SRN!!!  
  
DRACO: [To PANSY, mockingly] What, look you pale? O, bear him out  
o' the air.  
  
[HARRY walks offstage with several backward glances, probably at the Luggage,  
which is following him. RON gets to his feet and stalks offstage]  
  
RON: [muttering] I can't believe I let him kill me like that... and quit  
smiling, Harry.  
  
DRACO: Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress?  
Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?  
Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.  
Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her:  
Do you see, gentlemen? nay, guiltiness will speak,  
Though tongues were out of use.  
  
[Enter HERMIONE]  
  
GINNY: Has anyone noticed that she's getting more stage time than me and  
better lines, and I'm the main actress?  
  
SEAMUS: Bitch bitch bitch. I spent more time mocking *you*, though, so be  
happy.  
  
GINNY: Well, when you put it that way... it's *worse*! [She sniffles as  
though she were about to cry]  
  
HERMIONE: 'Las, what's the matter? what's the matter, husband?  
  
DRACO: Cassio hath here been set on in the dark  
By Roderigo and fellows that are scaped:  
He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.  
  
HERMIONE: Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!  
  
DRACO: This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,  
Go know of Cassio where he supp'd to-night.  
[To PANSY]  
What, do you shake at that?  
  
  
PANSY: [haughtily] He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not.  
...God, what a stupid line! How did I ever get sucked into this?  
  
DRACO: O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.  
  
HERMIONE: Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet!  
  
PANSY: I am no strumpet; but of life as honest  
As you that thus abuse me. [muttering] Bitch.  
  
HERMIONE: As I! feh! fie upon thee!  
  
DRACO: [edging away from the budding catfight] Kind gentlemen, let's go see  
poor Cassio dress'd.  
Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale.  
Emilia run you to the citadel,  
And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd.  
Will you go on? I pray.  
[Aside]  
This is the night  
That either makes me or fordoes me quite.  
  
[Exit all]  
  
COLIN: Nrf! Mrghlghk...  
  
SEAMUS: Boy, he's really trying, isn't he? And he doesn't learn either...  
  
[HARRY shrugs and hands SEAMUS the pink scarf, which he uses to tie COLIN's  
hands]  
  
SEAMUS: There. Now you *really* have something to gurgle about.  
  
[COLIN looks confused for a minute, then blushes beet red.]  
  
DEAN: I wonder what he's thinking about.  
  
DRACO: [piously] Probably that he could have gotten out any time he wanted  
to earlier.  
  
SEAMUS: I don't think he wanted to, though...  
  
End scene i  
  
  
The Play's the Thing: Act V, scene ii  
  
  
LOCKHART: All right, you lot. This is the last scene, and then you're free  
to be hellish little demons elsewhere for the rest of the day. Can we try to  
recover some sanity, just for this one scene?  
  
GOYLE: Sanity? How d'you spell that?  
  
[Enter GINNY. She walks to center stage and lies on the ground, pretending  
to be asleep. Enter DEAN, trying to look pensive and angry]  
  
  
DEAN: It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,--  
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--  
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;  
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,  
And smooth as monumental alabaster.  
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.  
Put out the light, and then put out the light:  
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,  
I can again thy former light restore,  
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,  
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,  
I know not where is that Promethean heat  
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,  
I cannot give it vital growth again.  
It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree.  
  
[He kisses GINNY briefly on the cheek]  
  
SEAMUS: Ewwwww, cooties!  
  
[Everyone looks at SEAMUS oddly for a moment, then DEAN shakes his head and  
continues his monologue]  
  
DEAN: Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade  
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.  
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,  
And love thee after. One more, and this the last:  
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,  
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly;  
It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.  
  
SEAMUS: If I'd just been kissed all over the face I would too.  
  
GINNY: Who's there? Othello?  
  
RON: No, Avon calling.  
  
DEAN: Ay. Desdemona.  
  
GINNY: Will you come to bed, my lord?  
  
SEAMUS: Just say 'no' to nymphomania....  
  
HARRY: Look who's talking.  
  
DRACO: [agreeing with HARRY] Hypocrite.  
  
SEAMUS: Excuse me?  
  
DEAN: Have you pray'd to-night, Desdemona?  
  
GINNY: Ay, my lord.  
  
SEAMUS: [imitating GINNY praying] Oh great Lord of Darkness...  
  
RON: You *really* don't want to finish that crack, Seamus.  
  
DEAN: If you bethink yourself of any crime  
Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,  
Solicit for it straight.  
  
SEAMUS: I killed someone yesterday and ate them. Was that bad?  
  
GINNY: Alas, my lord, what do you mean by that?  
  
DEAN: Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by:  
I would not kill thy unprepared spirit;  
No; heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.  
  
GINNY: Talk you of killing?  
  
RON: No, he's talking about the laundry.  
  
DEAN: Ay, I do.  
  
GINNY: Then heaven  
Have mercy on me!  
  
HARRY: We're sorry, all lines are busy now. Please hang up and try your  
call again later.  
  
DEAN: Amen, with all my heart!  
  
GINNY: If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.  
  
SEAMUS: [whining] But he promised!  
  
DEAN: Hum!  
  
SEAMUS: [thinks for a moment] The handkerchief!  
  
HARRY: That was last act, Seamus.  
  
SEAMUS: Worth a try, though.  
  
GINNY: And yet I fear you; for you are fatal then  
When your eyes roll so: why I should fear I know not,  
Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.  
  
DRACO: And the fact that he's been threatening to kill you for two acts now  
is probably influencing your judgement, too.  
  
DEAN: Think on thy sins.  
  
SEAMUS: We'll wait.  
  
GINNY: They are loves I bear to you.  
  
DEAN: Ay, and for that thou diest.  
  
[SEAMUS cheers]  
  
GINNY: That death's unnatural that kills for loving.  
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?  
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame:  
These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,  
They do not point on me.  
  
SEAMUS: Don't confuse the issue with facts and philosophical gibbering!  
  
DEAN: Peace, and be still!  
  
GINNY: I will so. What's the matter?  
  
DEAN: That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee  
Thou gavest to Cassio.  
  
GINNY: No, by my life and soul!  
Send for the man, and ask him.  
  
DRACO: That'll be a little difficult. As far as he knows, dead men tell no  
tales.  
  
DEAN: Sweet soul, take heed,  
Take heed of perjury; thou art on thy deathbed.  
  
GINNY: Ay, but not yet to die.  
  
HARRY: For I am immortal...  
  
DEAN: Yes, presently:  
Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin;  
For to deny each article with oath  
Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception  
That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.  
  
DEAN: Then Lord have mercy on me!  
  
HARRY: Please hold. You will be answered by the next available savior.  
Your call *is* important to us here in Heaven.  
  
DEAN: I say, amen.  
  
SEAMUS: Can I get a hallelujah?  
  
GINNY: And have you mercy too! I never did  
Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio  
But with such general warranty of heaven  
As I might love: I never gave him token.  
  
DEAN: By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in's hand.  
O perjured woman! thou dost stone my heart,  
And makest me call what I intend to do  
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice:  
I saw the handkerchief.  
  
DRACO: Pink scarves are hard to miss.  
  
GINNY: He found it then;  
I never gave it him: send for him hither;  
Let him confess a truth.  
  
DEAN: He hath confess'd.  
  
HARRY: He killed the busboy in the lemonade stand with the wedge of kiwi.  
  
GINNY: What, my lord?  
  
DEAN: That he hath used thee.  
  
GINNY: How? unlawfully?  
  
DEAN: Ay.  
  
DRACO: [yawning] Gripping dialogue we have here.  
  
GINNY: He will not say so.  
  
DEAN: No, his mouth is stopp'd;  
Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't.  
  
DRACO: [bows] The bill is in the mail.  
  
GINNY: O! my fear interprets: what, is he dead?  
  
SEAMUS: No, look, 'e's restin'.  
  
DEAN: Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge  
Had stomach for them all.  
  
SEAMUS: So in the long run, he's probably better off.  
  
CRABBE: [still crying] ...poor puppies....  
  
DRACO: No, Vincent, that was Weasley with the puppies, and I killed him last  
scene.  
  
GINNY: Alas! he is betray'd and I undone.  
  
DEAN: Out, strumpet! weep'st thou for him to my face?  
  
GINNY: O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!  
  
DEAN: Down, strumpet!  
  
GINNY: Kill me to-morrow: let me live to-night!  
  
DRACO: [imitating GINNY] Let me change your mind!  
  
DEAN: Nay, if you strive--  
  
HARRY: [imitating GINNY] Five more minutes?  
  
GINNY: But half an hour!  
  
DEAN: Being done, there is no pause.  
  
HARRY: Three more minutes?  
  
GINNY: But while I say one prayer!  
  
DEAN: It is too late.  
  
HARRY: One more minute?  
  
[DEAN uses GINNY's cloak to mime stifling her.]  
  
HERMIONE: [Offstage] My lord, my lord! what, ho! my lord, my lord!  
  
DEAN: What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?  
I that am cruel am yet merciful;  
I would not have thee linger in thy pain: So, so.  
  
DRACO: If you didn't want her to linger, you should have just cut off her  
head.  
  
HERMIONE: [still offstage] What, ho! my lord, my lord!  
  
SEAMUS: [irritated] Can't you see the guy's busy?  
  
DEAN: Who's there?  
  
RON: Avon calling!  
  
HERMIONE: [Within] O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!  
  
DEAN: Yes: 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead.  
'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death.--  
The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?  
Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good?--  
I think she stirs again:--no. What's best to do?  
If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife:  
My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife.  
O insupportable! O heavy hour!  
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse  
Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe  
Should yawn at alteration.  
  
HARRY: That's done it. He's snapped.  
  
HERMIONE: [Within] I do beseech you  
That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!  
  
DEAN: I had forgot thee: O, come in, Emilia;  
Soft; by and by. Let me the curtains draw.  
Where art thou?  
[Enter HERMIONE]  
What's the matter with thee now?  
  
HARRY: ...stabbing pains... right here... see?  
  
HERMIONE: O, my good lord, yonder's foul murders done!  
  
HARRY: That, too.  
  
DEAN: What, now?  
  
DRACO: No, three weeks ago. She only just now got around to telling you  
you're dead.  
  
HERMIONE: But now, my lord.  
  
DEAN: It is the very error of the moon;  
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,  
And makes men mad.  
  
SEAMUS: Suuure, blame it on the moon.  
  
HERMIONE: Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian  
Call'd Roderigo.  
  
DEAN: Roderigo kill'd!  
And Cassio kill'd!  
  
HERMIONE: No, Cassio is not kill'd.  
  
RON: Drat. Didn't Malfoy kill him, too? Hey, Harry, feel left out?  
  
DEAN: Not Cassio kill'd! then murder's out of tune,  
And sweet revenge grows harsh.  
  
GINNY: O, falsely, falsely murder'd!  
  
SEAMUS: Aaaaaaa! It talked! The dead body talked!  
  
HERMIONE: Alas, what cry is that?  
  
DEAN: That! what?  
  
HARRY: [imitating DEAN] It was the wind, that's all... just the wind....  
  
HERMIONE: Out, and alas! that was my lady's voice.  
Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again!  
Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!  
  
GINNY: A guiltless death I die.  
  
SEAMUS: It did it again! What kind of play *is* this?  
  
HERMIONE: O, who hath done this deed?  
  
GINNY: Nobody; I myself. Farewell  
Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell!  
  
[GINNY 'dies', but since she just continues lying on the stage with her head  
wrapped in her cloak, no one can really tell the difference]  
  
SEAMUS: Finally!  
  
DEAN: Why, how should she be murder'd?  
  
DRACO: I'll take a wild guess and say asphyxiation.  
  
HERMIONE: Alas, who knows?  
  
DEAN: You heard her say herself, it was not I.  
  
SEAMUS: Don't believe her, she's a liar.  
  
HERMIONE: She said so: I must needs report the truth.  
  
DEAN: She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell:  
'Twas I that kill'd her.  
  
HERMIONE: O, the more angel she,  
And you the blacker devil!  
  
DEAN: She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.  
  
HERMIONE: Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.  
  
DEAN: She was false as water.  
  
HERMIONE: Thou art rash as fire, to say  
That she was false: O, she was heavenly true!  
  
HARRY: So neener neener neener.  
  
DEAN: Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.  
O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,  
But that I did proceed upon just grounds  
To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.  
  
HERMIONE: My husband!  
  
DEAN: Thy husband.  
  
HERMIONE That she was false to wedlock?  
  
DEAN: Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,  
If heaven would make me such another world  
Of one entire and Perfect chrysolite,  
I'ld not have sold her for it.  
  
HERMIONE: My husband!  
  
SEAMUS: [carried away] The handkerchief!  
  
DEAN: Ay, 'twas he that told me first:  
An honest man he is, and hates the slime  
That sticks on filthy deeds.  
  
DRACO: A little soap washes slime right off, though.  
  
HERMIONE: My husband!  
  
SEAMUS: Stop saying that!  
  
DEAN: What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.  
  
HERMIONE: O mistress, villany hath made mocks with love,  
My husband say that she was false!  
  
DEAN: He, woman;  
I say thy husband: dost understand the word?  
My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago.  
  
SEAMUS: [imitating HERMIONE] No, could you spell it out for me?  
  
HERMIONE: If he say so, may his pernicious soul  
Rot half a grain a day! he lies to the heart:  
She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.  
  
HARRY: You should write greeting cards.  
  
DEAN: Ha!  
  
HERMIONE: Do thy worst:  
This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven  
Than thou wast worthy her.  
  
SEAMUS: Ooh, two for Hermione, while Dean has yet to score.  
  
DRACO: None of us asked about your personal life, Finnegan.  
  
DEAN: Peace, you were best.  
  
HERMIONE: Thou hast not half that power to do me harm  
As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!  
As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed--  
I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,  
Though I lost twenty lives.--Help! help, ho! help!  
The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murder! murder!  
  
[Enter NEVILLE (still taking the placce of COLIN), SEAMUS, and DRACO]  
  
SEAMUS: [under his breath] Finally, a little stage time...  
[more loudly] What is the matter? How now, general!  
  
HERMIONE: O, are you come, Iago? you have done well,  
That men must lay their murders on your neck.  
  
HARRY: [offstage] It's a gift.  
  
NEVILLE: What is the matter?  
  
HERMIONE: Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man:  
He says thou told'st him that his wife was false:  
I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain:  
Speak, for my heart is full.  
  
RON: Mr. Lockhart, can she be excused? Her heart is full.  
  
LOCKHART: Mr. Weasley, I would very much appreciate not being brought into  
this.  
  
RON: But you're the director!  
  
LOCKHART: And?  
  
DRACO: I told him what I thought, and told no more  
Than what he found himself was apt and true.  
  
HERMIONE: But did you ever tell him she was false?  
  
DRACO: I did.  
  
HERMIONE: You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;  
Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Yeah. So?  
  
HERMIONE: She false with Cassio!--did you say with Cassio?  
  
DRACO: With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue.  
  
HARRY: Here, Hermione, you can use my wand.  
  
HERMIONE: [glares offstae at HARRY, who smiles blandly] I will not charm my  
tongue; I am bound to speak:  
My mistress here lies murder'd in her bed,--  
  
RON: [offstage] No, she's fine. Just resting.  
  
[A beat of silence, during which no one speaks.]  
  
HERMIONE: And your reports have set the murder on.  
  
DEAN: Nay, stare not, masters: it is true, indeed.  
  
NEVILLE: 'Tis a strange truth.  
  
RON: [offstage] No, she's resting.  
  
SEAMUS: O monstrous act!  
  
HERMIONE: [overwrought] Villany, villany, villany!  
I think upon't, I think: I smell't: O villany!--  
I thought so then:--I'll kill myself for grief:--  
O villany, villany!  
  
RON: [crossly] Then kill yourself already and get it over with!  
  
DRACO: What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.  
  
HERMIONE: Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak:  
'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.  
Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.  
  
HARRY: Then everything works out nicely.  
  
DEAN: O! O! O!  
  
[DEAN falls on the ground, then immediately sits up, rubbing his head]  
  
HERMIONE: Nay, lay thee down and roar;  
For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent  
That e'er did lift up eye.  
  
DEAN: [Rising] O, she was foul!  
I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your niece,  
Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp'd:  
I know this act shows horrible and grim.  
  
COLIN: Nrgl? Nuh? Drstnnnn!  
  
NEVILLE: Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father's dead:  
Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief  
Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now,  
This sight would make him do a desperate turn,  
Yea, curse his better angel from his side,  
And fall to reprobation.  
  
RON: Did you hear that, Seamus? Your character's dead!  
  
DEAN: 'Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows  
That she with Cassio hath the act of shame  
A thousand times committed; Cassio confess'd it:  
And she did gratify his amorous works  
With that recognizance and pledge of love  
Which I first gave her; I saw it in his hand:  
It was a handkerchief, an antique token  
My father gave my mother.  
  
HERMIONE: O heaven! O heavenly powers!  
  
HARRY: At the sound of the trumpet chorus, please leave your name and number  
and we will return your call as soon as possible.  
  
DRACO: Come, hold your peace.  
  
HERMIONE: 'Twill out, 'twill out: I peace!  
No, I will speak as liberal as the north:  
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,  
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.  
  
DRACO: Be wise, and get you home.  
  
HERMIONE: I will not.  
  
[Everyone looks at their script, then DRACO shrugs]  
  
DRACO: [offering] I'll stab her for you.  
  
NEVILLE: Fie!  
Your sword upon a woman?  
  
HARRY: The script said he should offer.  
  
HERMIONE: [mocking] O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou speak'st of  
I found by fortune and did give my husband;  
For often, with a solemn earnestness,  
More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle,  
He begg'd of me to steal it.  
  
DRACO: Villanous whore!  
  
HERMIONE: She give it Cassio! no, alas! I found it,  
And I did give't my husband.  
  
DRACO: Filth, thou liest!  
  
HARRY: I think you lost this one, Draco. Better just give up.  
  
HERMIONE: By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.  
O murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool  
Do with so good a woman?  
  
DEAN: Are there no stones in heaven  
But what serve for the thunder?--Precious villain!  
  
[DEAN charges at DRACO, who dodges and stabs HERMIONE with his wand. She  
falls to the ground, simulating death. DRACO races offstage and collides  
almost accidentally with HARRY. Both get up, and DRACO heads to a different  
part of the Great Hall.]  
  
NEVILLE: The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife.  
  
HERMIONE: Ay, ay: O, lay me by my mistress' side.  
  
NEVILLE: He's gone, but his wife's kill'd.  
  
SEAMUS 'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,  
Which I have here recover'd from the Moor:  
Come, guard the door without; let him not pass,  
But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain,  
For 'tis a damned slave.  
  
[Exit SEAMUS and NEVILLE. NEVILLE brings the handcuffs out of his pocket and  
tosses them to HARRY. All three of them start hunting down DRACO]  
  
DEAN: I am not valiant neither,  
But ever puny whipster gets my sword:  
But why should honour outlive honesty?  
Let it go all.  
  
HERMIONE: What did thy song bode, lady?  
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan.  
And die in music.  
  
[offstage, SEAMUS screams]  
  
SEAMUS: Does no one die when you kill them in this play?  
  
RON: I did.  
  
SEAMUS: No, you didn't. You just weren't as talky about it.  
  
RON: Let me know when you decide to make sense.  
  
HERMIONE: [Singing in an okay voice. Better than GINNY, not quite as good  
as DRACO]  
Willow, willow, willow,--  
Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;  
So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;  
So speaking as I think, I die, I die.  
  
[HERMIONE falls limply into a lying-down position, 'dead']  
  
DEAN: I have another weapon in this chamber;  
It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper:--  
O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.  
  
HARRY: [offstage] Come on, it'll be fun...  
  
DRACO: Then *you* wear them.  
  
NEVILLE: [at the side of the stage] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee  
dear:  
Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.  
  
DEAN: Look in upon me then and speak with me,  
Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.  
  
SEAMUS: [offstage] You're *naked*?!  
  
[Re-enter SEAMUS]  
  
SEAMUS: What is the matter?  
  
DEAN: Behold, I have a weapon;  
A better never did itself sustain  
Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,  
That, with this little arm and this good sword,  
I have made my way through more impediments  
Than twenty times your stop: but, O vain boast!  
Who can control his fate? 'tis not so now.  
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;  
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,  
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.  
Do you go back dismay'd? 'tis a lost fear;  
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,  
And he retires. Where should Othello go?  
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!  
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,  
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,  
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!  
Even like thy chastity. O cursed slave!  
Whip me, ye devils,  
From the possession of this heavenly sight!  
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!  
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!  
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!  
Oh! Oh! Oh!  
  
[Enter NEVILLE, GOYLE, HARRY, and DRACO. DRACO is wearing the handcuffs, and  
HARRY has firm grasp of his arm]  
  
NEVILLE: Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?  
  
DEAN: That's he that was Othello: here I am.  
  
NEVILLE: Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.  
  
DEAN: I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.  
If that thou best a devil, I cannot kill thee.  
  
[DEAN stabs DRACO with his wand. DRACO sags into the nearby HARRY, but does  
not fall over]  
  
NEVILLE: Wrench his sword from him.  
  
DRACO: I bleed, sir; but not kill'd.  
  
RON: Can't you do anything right, Dean? You're supposed to kill the bad guy!  
  
DEAN: I am not sorry neither: I'ld have thee live;  
For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.  
  
NEVILLE: O thou Othello, thou wert once so good,  
Fall'n in the practise of a damned slave,  
What shall be said to thee?  
  
DEAN: Why, any thing:  
An honourable murderer, if you will;  
For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.  
  
RON: Oh sure, you say that *now*.  
  
NEVILLE: This wretch hath part confess'd his villany:  
Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?  
  
DEAN: Ay.  
  
HARRY: Dear general, I never gave you cause.  
  
DEAN: I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.  
Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil  
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?  
  
DRACO: Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:  
From this time forth I never will speak word.  
  
RON: Pouty, aren't you?  
  
NEVILLE: What, not to pray?  
  
SEAMUS: Torments will ope your lips.  
  
DEAN: Well, thou dost best.  
  
NEVILLE: Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,  
Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter  
Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo;  
And here another: the one of them imports  
The death of Cassio to be undertook  
By Roderigo.  
  
DEAN: O villain!  
  
HARRY: Most heathenish and most gross!  
  
RON: Yes, he's the villain. We all knew that. Now kill him.  
  
NEVILLE: Now here's another discontented paper,  
Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,  
Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;  
But that belike Iago in the interim  
Came in and satisfied him.  
  
DEAN: O the pernicious caitiff!  
How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief  
That was my wife's?  
  
RON: He is your wife... don't you recognize him...?  
  
SEAMUS: [startled out of character] Hey! That's low, Ron, take it back!  
  
HARRY: I found it in my chamber:  
And he himself confess'd but even now  
That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose  
Which wrought to his desire.  
  
DEAN: O fool! fool! fool!  
  
RON: Yes, we told you so.  
  
HARRY: There is besides in Roderigo's letter,  
How he upbraids Iago, that he made him  
Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came  
That I was cast: and even but now he spake,  
After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,  
Iago set him on.  
  
RON: Man, he had plans everywhere, didn't he?  
  
NEVILLE: You must forsake this room, and go with us:  
Your power and your command is taken off,  
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,  
If there be any cunning cruelty  
That can torment him much and hold him long,  
It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,  
Till that the nature of your fault be known  
To the Venetian state. Come, bring him away.  
  
DEAN: Soft you; a word or two before you go.  
I have done the state some service, and they know't.  
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,  
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,  
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,  
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak  
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;  
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought  
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,  
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away  
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,  
Albeit unused to the melting mood,  
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees  
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;  
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,  
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk  
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,  
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,  
And smote him, thus.  
  
[DEAN falls to the ground for no discernible reason. It takes a moment  
before the other cast members realize he's supposed to be dead. There are  
now three cast members lying 'dead' on the stage]  
  
NEVILLE: O bloody period!  
  
SEAMUS: All that's spoke is marr'd. [muttering] Whatever *that* means...  
where's a dictionary when you need one?  
  
DEAN: I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this;  
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.  
  
[Silence falls for a moment]  
  
RON: [coming onstage and pointing at DEAN] Wasn't he supposed to be dead?  
Why does everyone get to talk after they've been killed but me?  
  
HARRY: This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;  
For he was great of heart.  
  
NEVILLE: [To DRACO] O Spartan dog,  
More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!  
Look on the tragic loading of this bed;  
This is thy work: the object poisons sight;  
Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,  
And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,  
For they succeed on you. To you, lord governor,  
Remains the censure of this hellish villain;  
The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it!  
Myself will straight aboard: and to the state  
This heavy act with heavy heart relate.  
  
LOCKHART: And that's that. Rehearsal at the same time tomorrow, all of you-  
  
GINNY: Can I move now? My arms are beginning to lock up and I can't breathe.  
  
LOCKHART: [sighs] Yes, you can move.  
  
CRABBE: Look!! I drew a real puppy!  
  
DRACO: [shakes his head] Very nice, Vincent. [in an undertone, to HARRY]  
Help....  
  
HARRY: Well... we do have that one scene we need to work on... let's go and  
see if we can't get it at least partially right before tomorrow.  
  
DRACO: Good idea.  
  
[They exit the Great Hall. RON is busy untangling GINNY from her cloak.  
DEAN and SEAMUS have disappeared. After a few minutes, everyone has left the  
Great Hall but one lone figure tied to a chair.]  
  
COLIN: Grsh! Grsh? Snfnee! Grsh...?  
  
  
End Othello. Thanks for watching.  
  
  
  



End file.
